What About Your Friends (John 15:23)

Friendship makes the difference. To have more in 2024 this year, you need to have friends. You need to have more friends. You need to have friends to have more money, opportunities, resources, and excellence. The most excellent demonstration of love is laying down your life for your friends. It is time for you to call your friends, send them a text message, a DM, an IM, tweet them, send them a message today, and let them know how much you love them and appreciate them.

 It is time to lay down the foolishness, pick up that phone, and call your friends. No matter how much space has been between the two of you, call your friend and contact them today. No matter how long time passes, get in touch with your friends. The friendship is more significant than what you all are fussing about. The friendship is more important than their human frailties, and the things they did that were not right. We are all working on ourselves and have things we need to work on to be our best selves.

So, I am inviting you today to focus on your friendship. That’s our word for the day: friendship. You need support, and your support is going to guarantee you success. You need the support of your friends. Now, in our text today, there was a lame man, and what made the difference in this man’s life were his friends. He didn’t have to beg like the beggar at the gate called Beautiful, who was also lame. This man didn’t have to beg. Why? Because he had friends.

This man was not alone. He was not like the man at the pool of Bethesda. He was not alone. Even though that man had hundreds of people around him waiting for the trouble of the water, he still felt alone. You can be in a crowded room, but when you have friends, you are never alone. You know they are with you in your heart and mind. This man who had friends didn’t have to feel sorry for himself because he had friends.

You don’t have to feel sorry for yourself and drown in depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation when you have friends. Friends see in you what you don’t see for yourself. Friends stand in the gap and make up the house when you can’t do it yourself. Friends pray for you when you can’t pray for yourself. Friends will stick by you no matter what’s going on. They will be there for you. There’s a friend that sticks closer than a brother, but to have friends, you need show yourself friendly. To have friends in your life, you need to be a friend.

Open your heart to friendship. Open up your mind to friendship. I celebrate all my friends today. I have had friends for forty, thirty-five, thirty, twenty-five, twenty-five, twenty-five, twenty-five years, and my newest friends for about eight years since I moved to Tampa Bay. I celebrate God for my friends today. Put your friends in the chat line and celebrate with them. Let them know how much you appreciate them.

Don’t you know your friends are God with skin? The Greek word for friendship is philios, which means brotherly, sisterly, and that friendship kind of love. God manifests in the form of friends to show you that you are not alone, to show you that you are loved and that you are lovable. This man was not alone. He didn’t have to beg, and he didn’t have to feel sorry for himself because he had his friends. And his friends didn’t give up on him.

They knew that Jesus was in the house, and because Jesus was in the house, they knew healing was in the house. They were determined to see their friend healed, delivered, and walk again. So, they went to try to take their friend in the door. And guess what? It was so crowded that they could not get in through the door.

But let me tell you about friends: they don’t give up. So, the friends went to the window. They tried the window to get him through to see Jesus and to get him to his healing. And guess what? It was too crowded. They were not able to get him through the window. But friends, they don’t give up. So, you know what they did?

They took the roof off the sucker. The roof they took the roof off the house and let their friend down right in front of Jesus. They went through the layers to ensure their friend got what he needed to be healed, in order to walk again. And I am telling you today, you need that kind of friend. You need those friends who never give up because friends are love. Love always hopes, trusts, believes, perseveres, and endures. Philios—friendship