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?
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