The Best Friend You Will Ever Have - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, November 19th. Are you a friend who reflects the character of Christ to others? Evaluate your relationships in light of your connection to the best friend you'll ever have, Jesus. Now if you'll think about the life of Jesus for a moment, Jesus didn't spend most of his time with the great throngs of people. Jesus invested most of his time with a handful of fellows that he made his friends. He was a friend to every one of them. And you see if you look to see what Jesus said in the Gospels, he was always instructing others how to relate to other people and how to develop friendships. And he continuously said, we love each other, which is the basis of real true friendship. Now when you and I think about Jesus Christ being our friend, most of us realize that he's our Savior, Lord, Master and God.

But on a daily basis, how many of us really and truly think about, relate to Jesus Christ as our friend? So what I want to do in this message, I want you to discover three things. I want you to discover, first of all, what a friend Jesus Christ is to you. Secondly, I want you to discover, is there anyone to whom you are this kind of friend?

A third thing you may discover, is there anyone that you have a relationship with that you could call a genuine friend based on the qualities of true genuine friendship? That is, what kind of friend is Jesus? What kind of friend are you? And to whom are you that kind of friend? Is there anyone that you can call, he is my real friend. She is my real friend.

Is there anyone? How many of us have true genuine friends that we can say, now, when you really and truly need a true friend, a genuine friend, that's my friend? Well, what are the marks of true friendship?

Number one, the marks of true friendship, first of all, let's look at them from Jesus' point of view and then let's relate them to each other. He loves you just the way you are. Jesus loves you just the way you are. He knows everything there is to know about you and at the same time, he loves you fully and completely. He won't ever stop loving you no matter what you do. You can't ever do anything to alter his love for you.

It is always a continuing unalterable love. He doesn't love you for what you do and cease loving you for what you fail to do. He just loves you for being the person that you are. There's a second quality found in him and that's this, that Jesus Christ accepts me. He accepts us just the way we are. Jesus accepts you just the way you are, but now watch this.

Not only does he accept you the way you are, but he's not satisfied allowing you to be less than he knows you are capable of being. And so what does he do? He urges you. He motivates you.

He prods you to become the total person that he wants you to be. And you see, a true friend wants the best for you. A true friend wants you to mature. A true friend wants you to become everything you're capable of becoming.

A true friend is looking out for your best interest and a true friend is going to respond and react to you in your best interest. There's a third characteristic that's found in Jesus and that is he understands you fully. You see, the reason he understands us so well is because wherever we've been with temptation, trial, heartache, and burden, he's already been there.

He's already been where we've been. And you see, he understands in a way that is encouraging and uplifting. And is it not true that all of us need somebody who fully understands us and doesn't try to explain everything and sort it all out and give us a bunch of solutions, but who just is willing to accept us as we are lovingly and understands why we're where we are at this point in our life and is not trying to make us over in a hurry, not trying to get us to match up to their expectations, but just understands true friendship is able to be understanding no matter what. There's a fourth characteristic. That is with Jesus Christ, you can be totally open and honest about everything.

Let me ask you this. Is there anybody today who is your friend with whom you can be absolutely, totally open and honest with them? Do you have a friend like that? Well, there's a fifth one. He's committed to you as a friend.

Now think about this. Jesus Christ is committed to you as a friend. He won't ever disappoint you. Or you may get disappointed, but it won't be because he disappointed you. Your expectations may not have been exactly what wisdom and love would provide, but Jesus won't disappoint you. He'll never let you down. He'll never leave you. The Bible says he'll never forsake you. The 23rd Psalm is a beautiful affirmation of his walk with us, but you see there's something about Jesus that's better than just having a friend to walk with us because the Bible says he not only is my Savior, my Lord, the Bible says he's your life. You see that kind of friendship takes developing.

Time, talking, listening, loving, understanding. Are we so busy doing our thing that we're too busy to develop loving friendships and relationships? Jesus is committed to us. Is there anyone you're that committed to?

Is there anyone that committed to you that you can rely upon? Next, he is open and transparent to us at all times. God isn't going to keep any secrets about himself that you and I need to know.

He's willing to open himself and you see think about what he did. He ate with those disciples. He sailed with them on the Sea of Galilee. He laughed with them. He talked with them. He fellowshiped with them. He had all kinds of friends, but those were his intimate friends and Jesus knew how to be a friend and he was open and transparent and remember now he was the man who lived with these men and I can imagine that Jesus put his arm around them and I can imagine that oftentimes as they brought to him personally and privately their hardships and frustrations that they were going through, things they didn't understand. How many times he must have said to them, I understand. I know how you feel.

I understand why you feel the way you do and I want you to know that it's going to be all right. He loved them. He laughed with them.

He experienced all kinds of common, mundane, ordinary Monday morning kind of things with those apostles. He was their friend and he was open to them. Open and transparent. Why do we hide the things we hide? Because we don't want to be rejected. Why do we hide emotions that we'd like to express? Because we're afraid that somebody else will not be able to accept our emotions.

Let me ask you this. When's the last time you ever said to someone who's a friend, I just want you to know, man, I really love you. Or said to a lady, I just really love you.

You know, some people have a hard time with that. I said to a friend of mine one day, he and I were riding along and I was thinking about all the good times we'd had and things we'd experienced together and just swelling up in my heart was this overabundance of love and I just said to him, you know, I really love you. I could tell all of a sudden he was a little bit uncomfortable. He may have thought, he's the pastor, what does he want now?

Or what is he expecting of me? In other words, I didn't know what he felt and you say, I'm not sure he understood what he felt because he was not used to a man saying to him out of his heart, I really love you. He was slightly uncomfortable until I didn't say anything else. I just let the conversation drop and it suddenly dawned on him.

What I had done was expressed my honest true feelings to him. Men need to hug each other. Women need to hug each other and express love. You see, we don't say what we feel for fear of being misunderstood.

So what? We just have to learn to be open and transparent. I don't mean you should go around telling everything that you've ever heard, seen, felt, or desired in life.

That's not the issue. The issue is that you and I just be open and transparent when somebody says, I want you to know I really love you. Do you feel uncomfortable with that?

Does that throw you emotionally off balance for the moment? Do you sense a wonderful feeling of warmth when they say that? Is there something securing about somebody saying to you, I just really love you. There's just something about you I really like. I don't know why, but I just tell you, my love for you just gets deeper and deeper all the time. What would you say to a man if he came up and told you that?

Would you think, what's he looking for in a way? You know what the problem is? We build walls and we dare anybody to try to tunnel through or to cross over it. But you see, how did Jesus start this passage? This is my commandment that you love one another. And loving means accepting and being open and transparent and trusting and trustworthy. It speaks of commitment.

Well, let's move on. Likewise, Jesus encourages us to have other relationships. You see, while He says in His Word, we're to worship no other God, we're not to ever worship anybody else, but Jesus wants us to have loving relationships with other people. That is, while the Bible says that Jesus is jealous, that does not mean He's jealous in the way that we'd be jealous of each other.

That means a holy jealousy for our good. He doesn't want us worshiping anything or anybody but Himself, and that's right. But He wants us to have loving relationships with other people. For example, He says to a man, I want you to love your wife just like I love the whole body of Christ. And you know why He wants us to develop relationships like that? Because, you see, He said, but this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you have loved one toward another. And the more you and I love the Lord Jesus Christ, the more we're going to love other people. Because you see, to know Him is to love Him.

And to love Him is to become equipped to love other people in a deep, abiding, fulfilling level. The truth is, if you and I go through life and the only thing we have is surface relationships, what does that do? I don't believe there's a man or woman who wants to have simply a surface relationship with their husband or their wife. But a deep, ever-growing, abiding relationship, that is a friendship as well as a husband-wife relationship.

How many children would say of their parents, I just wish my dad would be my friend? And I wonder as you think about it, do you have friends that you want trust to have other relationships? You see, sometimes the reason we destroy a possible friendship is we stifle it. We want to grab that person and hold them only to ourselves, you to be only my friend.

No, not even Jesus did that. You see, true friends can trust other relationships. A true friend doesn't stifle and choke off other relationships. A true friendship is trustworthy.

Then Jesus is continuously making gestures of love to others. That's what a true friend does. You see, a true friend is sensitive not only to your needs but your wants. When's the last time as a man you picked up something, you bought a friend something because you heard him say, one of these days, I'd like to have, I need so and so. It may not have been very expensive, but you saw it, you remembered it, you bought it, and you gave it to him for no other reason than the fact he's your friend. And friends are usually looking for ways to express their love and their friendship each for the other. Isn't it amazing how self-centered and selfish we are? But when's the last time you ever did anything that was an expression of true, genuine love? Now listen, can you imagine all the things that Jesus did for his apostles?

I don't mean he bought a lot of things, but can you imagine all the things, just little tidbits of great wisdom that he would drop on them? And then there's Mary and Martha and Lazarus sitting in their home and talking with them around the table. Did you know one of the best ways to develop a friendship is by eating together? You see, intimacy is built on a closeness of relationship that begins of closeness in the Spirit.

I'm simply saying and prodding your mind to think for just a few moments, isn't it strange how distant we are when we think we're so close? When a son is little, what does he do? He gets on his father's lap and I mean, you know, he rides hobby horsey with him and he does all kind of things. He wrestles with him. After he gets a certain age, what does he do?

He shakes his hand. You know what that kid wants? He wants the same hug.

He wants the same affection because he needs it. And the truth is all of us need it. But I wonder if we don't send out verbal and bodily messages, don't touch me. Don't get too close to me. You may find out something about me. I don't want you to find out.

Don't touch me. But loving, weeping, hugging, touching, telling, sharing, openness, transparency, commitment, acceptance, all of that is part of building a loving relationship. And then Jesus Christ is an inspiring, comforting listener. Someone has said that the beginning of love is listening. Let me ask you something.

Is there anyone that you can sit down with and unburden your heart? You know what we need to learn to do is we need to learn to lock our eyes on the person who is speaking so we'll hear with our spirit exactly what they're saying. You see, you may hear with your ears, but if you're looking over yonder somewhere while I'm talking to you, for all I know, you're thinking about a thousand different things.

And then I can prove it when I ask you a question you can't answer it. You see, let me tell you something about Jesus, the listener. He never interrupts. He listens wholeheartedly. He doesn't jump in to criticize.

James chapter one says, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men liberally and abraighteth not. That means he won't come back and say, well, that's the 14th time you asked me for that. No, a friend listens. You know, sometimes we carry on conversations that are never complete.

Somebody says, I saw John yesterday. The other person doesn't say anything. The conversation is never complete. You don't build relationships by one way conversations. You build relationships by completing the conversation. I saw John yesterday.

How was he? Fine. That completes the circle. But how many wives say I talked to my husband and he grunts?

Mm hmm. That's not relationship. That's not friendship.

That's insensitivity. You see, Jesus is a great listener. Let me ask you a question.

Do you have anyone you can share your heart with? Who's that kind of a listener? When you're talking, you have their undivided attention. Not only have they locked their eyes on you, but for the moment, the whole world revolves around you because they're listening deep down inside. Then let me ask you this. When someone is talking to you, how do you listen?

Do you listen very busily or do you listen intently remembering that it may be you're the only person they want to trust that with? Then there's one last thing. Here's the kind of friend Jesus is. He laid down his life for you 2000 years ago on the cross. He died for your friendship, and that's the ultimate test.

He said greater love has no man than this. Then let in his life for his friends. You and I can let in our lives for our friends in giving of our time and lot of other things.

He laid down his life ultimately to develop an internal friendship with you that will never cease. And I want to ask you, what do you give up to develop friendships with others? What are you willing to forsake? Are you willing to give up your desires and your plan? You want to forsake something that you'd like to do in order to develop a friendship with someone else? Or are we harassed and covered with so much selfishness that we keep the walls built up and we go through life missing out on these friendships? I want to challenge you, my friend, to develop friendships.

But let me ask you this. How many of you know in your heart without a shadow of a doubt that you've entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ? You see, the moment you trust him as your personal Savior, here's what happens. He begins a development of a relationship with you of friendship.

It'll last for eternity. And you know how you contribute to the relationship? The Bible says, by lovingly obeying him.

How do we do that? Loving one another. We develop our part of the friendship by loving obedience. He develops his part of the friendship in a thousand ways that none of us would ever be able to fathom in this life. If you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you don't have him as a friend.

You only have him as a judge. But if you will trust him by asking him to forgive you of your sins and accepting his death on the cross as payment for your sin, in that moment, you begin a friendship that he'll work at forever. And you, my friend, will be blessed for eternity. Thank you for listening to part two of The Best Friend You'll Ever Have. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by In Touch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.