Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Friendship

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Proverbs says you’re not going to be a wise person unless you’re great at choosing, forging, and keeping terrific friendships. For the vast majority of your decisions, there will be many options that are all moral. Wisdom is being so in touch with reality that you know the right thing to do in the situations moral rules don’t address. And Proverbs says you will not lead a wise life unless you are really good at friendships. If we look at various verses in Proverbs, we can learn 1) the uniqueness of friendship, 2) how to discover a friend, 3) how to forge or build a friendship, and 4) where we get the power for friendship. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 29, 2005. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 17:17; 18:24; 25:17, 20; 26:18, 19; 27:5, 6, 9, 14, 17; 28:23; 29:5. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. This month, we've selected a special set of sermons and talks from across the years that Tim Keller preached at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. This month's messages highlight themes like rest, idolatry, and integrating our faith with our work, each one rooted in the truth that the gospel truly changes everything. The scriptures from the book of Proverbs a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity

a man of many companions may come to ruin but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house, too much of you, and he will hate you. Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart. Like a madman shooting firebrands or deadly arrows is a man who deceives his neighbor and says, I was only joking. Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart,

and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel. If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor than he who has a flattering tongue. Whoever flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his feet. This is God's word. We're looking some more at the subject of wisdom in the book of Proverbs.

In the Bible, wisdom is certainly not less than being moral and good, but it's much more. It's being so in touch with reality that you know what is the right thing to do in the vast majority of the situations that the moral rules don't apply to. The vast majority of your choices, your decisions, you'll have a whole lot of different choices in front of you. In most cases, no matter what your understanding of the morality is, no matter what your moral standards are, there'll be many, many, many options that are all moral. They're all allowable morally, but which is the wise one? Wisdom is the ability to know what the right thing is to do in the situations the moral

rules don't address. Now, the theme today is a crucial one in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs says, you're not going to be a wise person, you will not lead a wise life unless you are great at choosing, forging, and keeping terrific friendships. You will not make it in life unless you are really good at choosing, forging, and keeping terrific friendships. And if we're going to take a look at these verses on Proverbs, we can understand them and learn from them under these four headings. We're going to learn the uniqueness of friendship.

We're going to learn how we discover a friend. Then thirdly, how we forge a friend. And last of all, where we get the power for friendship. The unique necessity of friendship, the discovery of friendship, the forging and building of a friendship, and how you get the power to do that. First, let's take a look at the uniqueness of friendship, the forging and building of a friendship, and how you get the power to do that. First, let's take a look at the uniqueness of friendship. Take a look at the first two verses on the page, especially the second one.

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Now, you know what that's saying? Friend, a friend can be better than a sibling. And you gotta realize that this is being said in a culture that was much more family oriented than ours. Far more family oriented than ours. Well, why would that be? Why would a friend be better than a sibling? Well, look at verse 17, the first verse.

A friend loves at all times, but a sibling is for adversity. Now, here's what this is trying to say. Your siblings, the people you're related to by blood, your family, they're going to be there for you in adversity because they care, there's loyalty, there's memory. They're going to be there for you, but they may not like you. You know, they may not want to go out for a drink with you. They may not, you're not the person they want to hang out with, you see. A friend is

someone who's chosen you. And the word sticks, there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother, is a Hebrew word that's often translated in the Old Testament, cleave. And it means commitment out of a passionate love. A friend is better in many ways than a sibling. And this is trying to say something that the Bible says, especially the book of Proverbs, and that is that there is a unique necessity to friendship. Friendship brings something into your life that family can't bring, that romance can't bring, that neighbors can't bring, that nothing else can bring. And you've got to remember that because every culture will be putting friendship on the back seat and yet it's irreplaceable. That's the first point. Why? Well,

a liberal individualistic culture like ours always puts erotic love, romantic love, sexual love first. Take a look at our culture. Do we have all these glossy magazines, you know, plastered across the front of these glossy magazines? Who's best friend with who? No.

No, it's who's sleeping with who. Why would you care about who's best friend with who? Sleeping with, I want to know, right? I mean, you want to know. Well, maybe I do want to know. Think of, think of, in this stack, let's put all the CDs of songs about romantic love, and then over here, let's put all the songs

about friendship. Or, you know, interesting, just a quick example. The one blockbuster trilogy, one blockbuster set of movies that's ever been made, not about romance, not about family, but about friendship, is The Lord of the Rings. The beauty of friendship is the main theme of it. However, if you read the book, you'll know that the romantic stuff is in the appendices. It's in the appendices. But of course for Hollywood we had to pull that out of the appendices and we had to stick it center.

You know, we had Aragorn and Arwen, the love affair had to be right in the center. It wasn't in the book. Why? Well you see, our culture isn't turned on by friendship. It's not the most important thing to Tolkien. That was what the book was about. In a liberal individualistic culture, romance is the most important relationship. In a traditional conservative culture, family, father, mother, sibling, brother, sister, that's the most important. In a socialistic communitarian culture, it's the civic relationships. It's your relationship with your neighbors. But every culture will always put friendship into the second, into the back seat. Why? Because friendship is not a biological or sociological necessity. It's the only love

that is absolutely deliberate. It will not push itself upon you. Lewis, C.S. Lewis in his famous essay on friendship says, friendship is the least instinctive, organic, biological, the least necessary of all our loves. It has the least commerce with our physical system. There is nothing throaty about it, nothing that quickens the pulse or turns you red and pale. And what this means, of course, if it wasn't for erotic love, you wouldn't exist. If it wasn't for family love, you wouldn't have been reared. If it's not for neighbor love, you couldn't even survive.

You know, crime and depression, that sort of thing. And therefore, in a busy culture like ours, in an incredibly busy culture like ours, where we're working long hours and we're traveling, all the other loves, all the other relationships will push themselves upon you. Oh yeah, they will. You'll still, you still got to deal with your family. You still got to have civic relationships. You got to have vocational networking to have a job. You still have got to, you still want to, you know,

have romance. But friendship, which takes incredibly deliberate amounts of intentionally spent time over time, will always get squeezed out. And yet the book of Proverbs says, you won't make it without friends. That friendship, love, brings something into your life that is unique. I mean, you're talking about a family-oriented traditional culture that says that a friend in many ways, in many ways is better than a sibling, brings things into your life a sibling can't. The Book of Proverbs continually says, fools perish either for lack of friends or for poorly chosen friends. See, you know, we walk around in our culture saying, I am who I choose to be.

You are not who you chose to be. I'll tell you who you are. In the early stage of your life, you are what your family made you. And in the rest of your life, it's you are what your friends make you. It's your community that forms you. It's your community that shapes you.

In the early days, it was who your family was that shaped you. And now, it's who your friends are. And the Book of Proverbs says that you perish for a lack of or for a wrong friends. Point one. Alright, then what do we do? How do we get friends? Alright, point two, we learn about the discovery of friends. Now, what do we mean by discovery of friends? Go to the second Proverb, just briefly. A man of many companions may come to ruin, but a friend sticks closer than a brother. Notice, it's not a contrast between two equal groups of people.

Companions, acquaintances, associates, associations, you can have many, one friend. And this is getting across the idea that true friends aren't that many. You can't have that many. They're relatively rare compared to your other relationships. They're relatively rare. And let's go two-thirds of the way down. Here's the reason why.

Two-thirds of the way down to the page, chapter 27 verse 9, where it says, perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend, springs from earnest counsel. The pleasantness of one's friend. This word pleasantness is a word for sweetness. It's a word that always had to do with honey. Sweetness. This is saying that real friendship is like sweet food, delectably sweet food. Here's why that's pretty interesting. One of the things that surprised me, and of course, what do I know about cooking anyway, but all the commentators pointed out that when the Book of Proverbs was written, nobody had sugar yet. Nobody

had sugar yet. People did not know how to sweeten food. You know, today you can make almost any food sweet. It all depends on what you want to do. You create sweetened food. But back then, you had to discover sweetened food. There were certain foods that were naturally sweet and that was it. What's that point us to? Just this. Friendship requires a foundation, an affinity,

a common love, a common vision that can't be created, that can only be discovered. Now in one minute I'm going to turn around and say that the foundation isn't enough. You have to build on the foundation. But the foundation, there's an affinity that must be discovered. It cannot be created.

The two essays I looked at in getting ready for this sermon were Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous essay on friendship, which you can find on the internet, and C.S. Lewis's famous essay on friendship, which is in his book, The Four Loves. And they both talk about this. Ralph Aldo Emerson says this, friendship does not ask, do you love me, so much as, do you see the same truth? Are you passionate about the same thing? Now, C.S. Lewis puts it like this, the typical expression of opening friendship would be something like, what? You too? I thought I was the only one. That's the beginning of

a friendship. You too? I thought I was the only one. So though we can have erotic love and friendship in the same person, in some ways there is nothing less like a friendship than a love affair. Lovers are always talking to one another about their love. Friends hardly ever talk about their friendship. Lovers are face to face, absorbed in one another. Friends are side to side, shoulder to shoulder, absorbed in some common interest. You see what the point is there?

What makes a friend is not, oh, do you want to be my friend? But you too, you think that's important too, you love that too, and that creates a friend. And that's the reason why it's a unique, it brings something unique into your life. And Lewis goes on to really make it very, very plain. He says, this is why those pathetic people who simply want friends can never make any. The very condition for having friends is that you would want something else besides friends. If someone asks you, do you see the same truth?

And your honest answer is, I really don't care about that, I just want you to be my friend. Then no friendship can arise. There would be nothing for the friendship to be about. Those who have nothing can share nothing. Those who are going nowhere can have no fellow travelers. And that's the reason why. First of all, friendship has got to be something that you discover. And by the way, this is one of the reasons why Aile Red of Raveaux, who was a 12th century monk who wrote a whole book on friendship, said that of all the way, this is one of the reasons why Aile Red of Raveaux, who was a 12th century

monk who wrote a whole book on friendship, said that of all the loves, we're not talking about parent-child and brother-sister and husband-wife, of all the loves, this is the one he says that has the least intrigue. In other words, this is the least icky love. This is the love in which you don't constantly have as many hurt feelings and people upset and talking what about our relationship. You see, it has to be discovered before it can be forged. So there's a foundation. But let's keep on going. In fact, let me just say

this to make sure it's clear. Real true friendship cannot only be forged, it must be discovered. But, now, it cannot only be discovered, it must be forged. The foundation is not enough, you've got to build. And the book of Proverbs says there are four things you must do to create a friend, a true friendship. Now you could read these four things as the four marks of a true friendship, sort of as an evaluative guide, or you could look at them as four building blocks for creating a friendship. It's fine, either way. And here's what these four are. The four marks of true friendship are constancy, carefulness, candor, and counsel. Constancy, carefulness, candor, and counsel. Now let's spend a little time on them

because they're so crucial. First of all, constancy. Now what do we mean by constancy? I guess let's take a look at the first two verses one last time. A friend loves at all times. Ah, what does that mean? Does that mean if you're friends

you spend all of your time together? No, because don't forget the third of the Proverbs. Too much of you and he will hate you. You laughed when it was read. Of course. What does it mean when it says friends love at all times? It means all kinds of time. Good times, bad times.

Ordinary time. Routine. In other words, you can't be a friend without availability. You cannot be a friend without availability. Constant availability. That's part of what constancy means. But constancy doesn't just mean availability. It also means being there when the chips are down. And that's what verse 18, 24, the second verse is really about. And look carefully. Look what the contrast is. A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother. A friend will not let you go to

ruin. Now this isn't maybe, I hope you, most people know you and want to know you because you're useful to them. And before you get all bent out of shape about that, I want you to realize that most of the people you know, you know because they're useful to you. Most of your companions, your associates, most of the people you know, why do you know them? Why do you want to know them? Because they're useful to you,

and some of them are useful for having a good time. Some of them are useful for meeting other people. Some of them are useful for getting things done. Some of them are useful for getting things done. But you see, the people who only know you because you're useful, that when the chips are down, when you're starting to collapse, and when it's going to take a lot, a lot, a lot of involvement and expenditure to stay in a close relationship to you as your life is collapsing, that's when your companions say,

call me if you need anything. But a friend is there. Because a friend has deliberately made you not a means to an end, but an end in yourself. A friend goes to the mat. A friend says, I will do whatever it takes to keep you from falling into ruin. I won't let you get to the bottom.

I won't. I'll be there even when it costs me something." Constancy. That's a friend. Okay? A fair weather friend, of course, isn't a friend. Secondly, carefulness. Now, the carefulness thing is pretty interesting, and we have to ask ourselves a couple of questions. Why does a man deceive his neighbor and say, I was only joking. Why does a man loudly bless his neighbor early in the morning and it'll be taken as a curse? Here's a man who's emotionally disconnected.

I don't know your inner most, your inner topography enough to know that this joke actually hurts you. I don't know enough about how you, what kind of morning person you are or lack thereof to know what I can do in the morning. But most of all, look at the fourth one down, the fourth proverb down. Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day or like vinegar poured on soda is one who sings songs to a heavy heart. Now what is a singing song to a heavy heart? Singing to the, by the way, the word song there means a song of joy. There's emotional disconnection. I can be happy when you're sad. If I can be happy when you're

sad, you're not my friend. I'm not your friend. Or put it to you like this. Charlie Drew's friend. Or put it to you like this. Charlie Drew's mother-in-law has a little saying that Kathy and I try not to tell other parents, even if that's true, Charlie Drew's mother-in-law says here's the essence of parenting. Once you start to have children you realize for the rest of your life you're only as happy as your unhappiest child. For the rest of your life you're only as happy as your unhappiest child. Why? Because automatically whether you want to or not, you are emotionally connected, you are emotionally vulnerable. You can't sing songs when their heart's heavy. It just can't happen. But it's automatic. Here's what's so amazing and scary about friendship. In friendship,

you give the gift of emotional connection voluntarily. God has worked through Tim Keller's teaching to help countless people discover Christ's redemptive love and grow in their faith as they learn how the gospel is the key to every aspect of life. This month, we're featuring a brand new book by author Matt Smethurst titled Tim Keller on the Christian Life. In it, he distills biblical insights from Tim Keller's nearly 50 years of sermons, books, and conference messages, including each of the sermons we've highlighted

on the podcast this month. The book explores foundational theological themes from Tim Keller's work, like grace, idolatry, justice, prayer, suffering, and more. It's a resource that we hope will help you apply the gospel more richly to your everyday life. We'll send you a copy as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the good news of Christ's love with people all over the world.

Just visit GospelInLife.com slash give to request your copy. That's GospelInLife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. See, here's how you can tell whether you've really let that person become your friend or that person's really your friend. They can't go about singing songs when you're heavy-hearted. They can't go about their job when you're collapsing. But you see, for a friend to do that, that's amazing because that's such a gift.

It's a voluntary gift. A friend is someone, that's one of the reasons why you can't have too many, because you just can't survive with too many friends in some ways. But a friend creates that emotional connection as a gift, and as a result is unbelievably emotionally sensitive to you, knows how you're feeling,

and therefore is not using you, but rather is committed to your emotional flourishing because he or she can't flourish without your emotional flourishing as well. So, first of all, constancy. Secondly, incredible sensitivity, emotional connection, emotional vulnerability. But third, and I say but third because you'll see in a minute, it's a contrast.

Constancy, carefulness. But fourth thing you have to do for true friendship, candor, truth telling. Look here in the middle. Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. Now, do you see what the metaphors are? They're deliberately vivid, they're deliberately paradoxical. Friendly wounds, wounding kisses. Now, the old King James says it this way, verse 6,

faithful are the wounds of a friend. Well now what is this, what are friendly wounds? The answer is a friendly wound is a metaphor for words that your friend needs that are gonna be painful for that friend to hear. And yet they have to hear them. Now what if you're afraid to say what really needs to be said, then you're not a friend. Look at the parallelism,

this is the way to understand Hebrew poetry. Look at verse five and six. The second clause of verse five talks about hidden love. Now that is another metaphor, and what it's right to say is this is a person who thinks you're loving by hiding the truth. You say, oh, I love that person too much to confront. I love that person too much to tell them the truth. But look at what it's parallel to in verse 6. Hiding, covering up the truth out of love in verse 5 is the same

as the work of aning with a kiss. Because, why? Because if you say, oh, I love a person too much, to tell him the truth, what you really mean is I love myself too much to have to go through that. You're not being a friend. Look at the very last verse on the page, 29.5. Whoever flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his feet.

Now what does that mean? If you, instead of telling your friend what's wrong with him or her, so that the person gets an accurate view of both their strengths and weaknesses, if you don't do that, you are setting them up for a disastrous life as much as if you were putting their foot in a bear trap. Why? Because they're going to make their decisions on the basis of what they think they are, who they are, and they're going to be making one disastrous decision after another because they're out of touch with reality, because of their so-called friends. And by the way, you know, the richer

and the more powerful you are, the more likely your friends are doing this to you. And they're not really your friends. Go get some. Go get some real friends. Now, by the way, you notice how hard this is? Carefulness and candor. Candor is I'm telling the truth, but carefulness is I am so emotionally connected that the painful words I'm going to tell you are going to create pain for me. This is the reason why it's so hard to be a friend. You can either be careful and just shut up, or you can be candid and not really care. Either of those ways aren't painful,

but to be a friend is constant pain, because you have to be careful and candid and constant. And last of all, the fourth of the marks of a true friend, the fourth of the building blocks of a true friendship are counsel. And let's go back to the verse I mentioned two-thirds of the way down before, chapter 27 verse 9. The pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel. Now that word earnest counsel, the word earnest means from the heart,

and the word counsel means secrets. It means to tell someone a secret. It means to confide in somebody. What is this talking about? Very recently, a friend of mine called me up, spent quite a long time talking, and when he spoke to me, he was telling me, he was more emotionally vulnerable than he's ever been,

telling me about his own weaknesses, telling me secrets about himself that he's never told me before, being more vulnerable than ever, and yet, at the very same time, at the very same moment, reading me the riot act about the ways in which my life needed to change or I was going to be in a lot of trouble.

And when you look, and when I started reflecting on that, very probably life-changing conversation, in light of what the Bible says here, I suddenly realized how unique that is. A therapist does need to give you advice, but if the therapist or the pastor or if anybody gets that self-revealing every time you get the advice, well, that's not right.

But on the other hand, there's a kind of person who just ventilates, you know, just says, I want to tell you my feelings, I'm going to tell you my feelings, but it's not really counseling you. This is something that only a really close friend can do and you desperately need it. You're never going to become the person you need to be.

You can be without it. And there's two aspects to this council. Here it's pleasant, it's reassuring. But look down the third from the bottom, the third proverb from the bottom, as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. If you have a friendship in which there's intimacy and there's sharing from the heart and there's transparency and you're letting one another see to the bottom and you're talking about one another's things, but if the council's always reassuring and sweet or if it's always challenging and clashing,

there's emotional exploitation going on. Somebody is using some, or maybe you're both doing it for each other. But only if it goes back and forth and you're getting that kind of counsel, only if there's that kind of transparency, only if there's that kind of concern, only if there's that kind of wisdom,

only if there's that kind of balance, will you have a real friend, and will you become the person that you, will you become the person that you can be? So there it is. Look at the four. Constancy, carefulness, candor, and counsel. Or, if you want to summarize them into two, a friend always lets you in, never lets you down. Transparent always lets you in. Candor and counsel but there for you never lets you down constancy and carefulness. Always lets you in

never lets you down. If you find somebody who's got that common affinity with you, the foundation, and you use those building blocks you've got a friend. Foundation plus blocks plus time, and you've got one friend. Now, we could end there and say go and do likewise. But I want to tell you that we have a bigger problem perhaps than maybe some of you recognize, and if you don't recognize, let me help you along. If you read this page, and actually I could triple it with statements of what real friends are like from the book of Proverbs. If you read this page and you get a picture

of the ideal friend, the ideal friend, a friend who always gives you the truth even though A friend who always gives you the truth even though the friend experiences pain in doing so. A friend who cleaves to you and is faithful to you so that you're never ruined. A friend who is emotionally connected and gets into your shoes. When you read the description of a perfect friend, you'll find the two things happen to you, just like they happen to me, as I was preparing. On the one hand, there's a feeling of longing. And one of the reasons why there's such a feeling of longing is because

we live in a culture in which our friends are taken away from us faster than we can forge them. It's called mobility. I mean, not only do we have less time in which to stick forging, friendship forging, we have less time, our hours are longer. But also, they move away, or you move away. They're taken away from us, or we're taken away from them, faster than we can free-forge them, forge new ones. So when you read about a perfect friend, there's a longing that comes, and

the reason it comes is because we live in a culture in which we do not have all the friends our hearts need. We do not have all the friends our hearts need. But the second response to reading about this profile of a true friendship, of a true friend, is not so, is different. I don't just find it filling me with longing, I also find the profile to be crushing. You know why it's crushing? Because when you measure yourself according to this,

you begin to realize something. Let us admit that one of the reasons we do not have the friends that our hearts need is not because of our terrible mobile society, but because we aren't the friends we should be. The reason we don't have enough great friends is because we're not great friends. The reason we don't have people who are giving us

this stuff is because we're not giving it, because it's hard, it's so hard. Look, a friend always lets you in, never lets you down. How easy is it for you to be transparent? Really open up, really let a person in. How easy is it for you to give the gift of emotional vulnerability and connection? It's hard, we're afraid.

And because we're not good at giving it, we're not getting it. Always lets you in. Never lets you down. How are you at being there unconditionally for a person no matter what the cost? It's hard. Where are we going to get the power to be the friends

we need to be so that we can have the friends we need to have? And the answer is, the night before Jesus Christ died, he was, if I can use this word of Jesus, he was desperately trying to get across to his disciples the meaning of what he was about to do. In John 14, 15, 16, and 17, he's just desperately trying to explain to them what he was about to do. And one of the things he says in order to explain what he's going to do when he dies is with the conception of friendship.

In John 15 he says to the disciples, Tonight I no longer call you servants. A servant does not know his master's business, he letting in. But tonight I call you servants. A servant does not know his master's business, see, letting in. But tonight I call you friends. Now love one another as I love you. I am laying down my life for my friends. Now when Jesus Christ said that,

suddenly the whole history of the world can be understood in terms of friendship. God was a friendship. The Christian God, the biblical God, is a friendship, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, knowing and loving one another. And therefore he made us in his image, meaning we need friendship. You know, back in Genesis 3, when it talks about how God came walking in the cool of the garden to talk to Adam and Eve, Walking with someone is the Hebrew metaphor for friendship. To walk with someone, to walk together through life is a metaphor for friendship. And what that means is that God made us for friendship, made us for friendship with him,

made us for friendship with one another. But we turn from him. And you know, when you betray a friend, what happens? Usually the friend turns on you. But Jesus Christ, this is what he's telling us he did. He says, I am the ultimate friend. I am the ultimate friend who loves at all times. I am the one born for adversity. I am the ultimate friend who is going to cleave

to you at infinite cost to myself so that you will not be ruined. And here's how. I am the ultimate friend whose wounds are the wounds of love because instead of inflicting them, I'm going to take them. You know how the Bible says, blessed are the wounds of a friend. How much more blessed are they when they are not inflicted but received? Because Jesus Christ on the cross lost his friendship with God so that we could have friendship with God. Jesus Christ on the cross experienced what we should have experienced so that he could basically say,

he was the perfect friend, he let you in. How much more emotional connection do you want? Look at his arms, nailed open for you. How much more open do you want him to be? There's the ultimate friend, he lets you in, and also he never lets you down because in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he saw, his best friends falling asleep on him,

denying him, betray on him, denying him, betraying him. The father comes and says, you are going to have to go to hell or you're going to lose your friends. And Jesus said, I'll go to hell. There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother so that we're not ruined. There is a friend who goes to hell so that we're not ruined. Now if you know that, that liberates you to be the friend you need to be. If I know that Jesus Christ has let me all the way in, he trusts me, and he loves me no matter what,

then I can move out not being afraid of rejection. If I know Jesus Christ will never let me down, then I can move out not being afraid of being let down because all my eggs are not in the human friendship basket. And when I am liberated to be the great friend I ought to be by the great friendship of Jesus Christ on the cross, then I will find myself, paradoxically, getting the great friends that I need to have.

And so will you. And one last thing, one very last thing. The gospel is not just a resource for friendship because of the friendship of Jesus Christ to us Have you noticed how we said that on the one hand? You've got to have affinity with your friends if you're gonna have a friends that grow together but you also have to have constructive clash as Iron sharpens iron so friend sharpens friend and that's why Ralph Waldo Emerson says the most the great paradox of the best Friendships is this.

He says, friendship requires that rare mean between likeness and unlikeness. It's better to be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. There must be very two before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance of two large formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity

which beneath these disparities unites them. Now here's what he's saying. You need friends who are deeply like you and really unlike you if you want to have friendships that are really going to make you into the great thing that you could be. Well how are we going to get that? Don't we tend to gravitate to friends

who have the same passions? The same loves? The same affinities? Well then we're just going to be taken to friends who have the same passions? The same loves? The same affinities? Well then we're just going to be taken to people who are like us. Yeah, but in the gospel, here's what's going on. Jesus Christ is breaking into the lives of all kinds of people. Corporate and creative. Black and white.

Street kid and valley girl. Downtown and uptown. And suddenly, people who you would never give the time of day to, if you've experienced the grace of God through Jesus Christ, you find other people who otherwise are different in every other way except the deepest passion of their life is to love Jesus Christ who saved them through an act of radical friendship. And when I find somebody whose deepest affinity is my deepest affinity, yet in almost every other way is unlike me, think

of the potential. Think of the potential. Christian friendships are so radical and so exhilarating and so enriching. And don't be afraid. I say, oh my gosh, how do I know if I'm going to choose the right one? Just try. And CS Lewis puts it like this. We think we've chosen our own friends, but for a Christian there is strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies is always at work. Christ who said to the disciples, you have not chosen me, I have chosen you,

can also say to every group of Christian friends, you have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another. At the feast of friendship, it is God who has spread the board, and it is God who has chosen the guests. It is he who sometimes does and always should preside. Let us not reckon without our host. Make him the friend your heart desires,

and you will have all the friends your heart needs. Let us pray. Thank you Father for granting to us the radical cosmic act of friendship that Jesus Christ gave to us on the cross when he led us all the way in and showed us he will never let us down and he so radically befriends us that we can become the friends that we need to be. And we also thank you for the radical possibilities that we have within, we are going to be friends with all sorts of people, but within the Christian faith, there's tremendous potential to be deep friends with people who are like us in the most important area and unlike us in almost every other area. And we thank you for that possibility as well.

And we ask that you would remake our friendships in your image, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Help us to truly be what you made us to be, friends, walking together with you and with one another. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you'd like to see more people encouraged by the Gospel Center teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel in Life monthly partner. Your partnership allows

us to reach people all over the world with the life-giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner. That website again is gospelandlife.com slash partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 2005. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.