December 15, 2022 Show with A. M. Brewster on “The Nature of Biblical Friendship”

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 15th day of December 2022.

And I'm thrilled to have back on the program someone who has already proven to be a well -informed and fascinating guest, somebody that you'll be hearing monthly on this program now as a regular featured guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

His name is A .M. Brewster, president of Evermind Ministries, a biblical counselor, author, podcaster, and conference speaker.

And today we're going to be addressing a very important theme, the nature of biblical friendship.

Do you have them? Are you one? And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, A .M.

Brewster. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm really excited about this topic because, man, this has personally revolutionized my life.

Well, that's great. And tell our listeners about TruthLoveParent .com.

Yeah, so, okay. TruthLoveParent, or actually TruthLoveFamily. TruthLoveParent is the podcast associated with that ministry.

Right now, I have my personal A .M. Brewster website associated with TruthLoveParent, and we have a specific page specifically for all

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners. It's TruthLoveParent .com forward slash Iron. So, maybe you're not a parent, but definitely go there because I put on extra content for you guys that builds off of what

Chris and I talk about. Our past interviews are there with all of the resources associated with that, as well as resources for today's discussion.

Great. That's TruthLoveParent .com forward slash Iron, right?

Correct. And we'll be, God willing, repeating that later on in the program. One of the reasons why this is a very important theme is that friendships can be one of the most crucial areas where the metal is tested as to one's

Christian faith, as to one's commitment to Christ. Just as a marriage is, friendships, if they are close and not superficial or surface -level or very distant friendships, friendships typically go through a roller coaster ride if you have them long enough.

They test your patience. They test your ability to forgive.

They test a lot of things that are primary areas of the

Christian life because the closer we are to people on this planet, the more likely they will offend us, we will offend them, and we can betray friendships, we can be betrayed by friends, and the list goes on on how these things occur in our lives that sometimes leave lasting scars, but also have enabled us to weather the storms of life.

When we have a solid, loving, Christ -like friendship, it can get us through the roughest times in our lives, including the death of loved ones or even people who are they themselves dying, and of course, sharing the most wonderful, joyful, laughter -filled moments on Earth are always best spent with friends.

So, tell us why this particular subject compelled you to want to discuss it today.

Well, so I am in my early 40s, but I have moved over 20 times in my life.

Before I was 12 years old, I had never lived in a state for more than four years or a house for more than two years, and so when you move around that much, especially at a young age, friendships and things like that are all desperately important to you because you leave your old friends and you're afraid of making new friends.

Will I be able to make new friends and things like that? So, that was much of my life. I didn't really slow down very much as I got older.

I spent some time in my teen years in Michigan, but then into college, and there was a lot of moving thereafter. I think

I met somewhere around 22 times, and I don't know how many different churches I've visited and been part of, but as I've grown as an adult and I've really started to see that friendships are not just something to be consumed for our own pleasures, but that God has a specific role for these friendships in our lives, then

I started to realize that, man, oh man, for various reasons, I had really missed out through much of my life on the benefits and the glories of true biblical friendship.

And so, as I started to really pursue that and understand it, I started to realize that true

Christ -honoring biblical friendships, unfortunately, at least in my life, and I think in the lives of many people in this world, are fewer and further between than we like to think.

And as a biblical counselor working with various individuals, I have found that this tends to be the case for them.

And one of the most evident ways this shows itself in my biblical counseling is that people will come to me, not because they're in crisis, but because they have questions and they have needs that technically a biblical friend should be there to answer for them and help them with.

But because they don't have that in their lives, they're reaching out to a stranger to get these answers.

Yeah, I think it's interesting that one of the very aspects of the betrayal of Jesus Christ was that the key figure who is known globally by nearly everyone, even non -Christians,

Judas is known as the one, the primary one, who betrayed

Christ. And Christ was his friend that really elevated and magnified the depth of this betrayal.

And people will be called, even to this day, a Judas if they betray a friend.

This could be, and I know I've experienced the deep searing pain of the betrayal of people

I thought were my friends. Tell us where and how

Christians should specifically develop biblical friendships and how these friendships might differ from other areas in life where the same word is used, friend and friendship.

Sometimes I think we probably overuse that word where we should really be using the term acquaintance.

We use the word friend. But tell us about how we are to develop not only biblical friendships for ourselves, but how we are to develop in our own character and behavior what it takes to be a biblical friend to someone else or other people, plural.

I think you hit on something really important about the understanding of what friendship is.

And I'd have to say that what I have found is that for most Christians, our vocabulary is more inspired and informed by the world's usages than it is

God's usages. And I always want to encourage people to get back to a biblical dictionary, right? That means that our vocabulary, we need to use our words the way

God uses words. And the word friendship, I think we call lots of people friends who aren't.

I mean, my daughter is a perfect example. She's three years old. When she was three years old, 10 years ago, she'd go play on a playground.

She'd meet some child. And next thing I know, she's introducing me to her new friend. And to be honest, I don't believe that we adults get too far away from that.

And here's the reason why. Honestly, in America, in English, to refer to somebody, to introduce somebody else to someone and go, hey, this is my acquaintance, that almost seems rude, right?

So I think we overuse the word friend because there really isn't another good word that we feel comfortable using.

So I think that's part of the problem. So getting back to a biblical understanding is very important. I do want to say

I found this, and I'm not going to read the whole thing. You can go to truthlouparent .com

forward slash iron to get more information about this. But this young lady, an unbeliever,

Sidney Sider Mobina Ahmad, she created this six -stage friendship acquaintance theory.

She looked at her own life, and this thing is amazing. It really is fantastic to read through how she works through all of the people in her life.

She's got various levels, six stages. There's pre -acquaintance, acquaintance level one, acquaintance level two, acquaintance level three, pre -friend, and then she has her friend stage.

And her friend stage, she says, only makes up 1 % of the people in her life. And I think this young lady, she says, we're too afraid of the word acquaintance.

And we need to stop because 99 % of the people in her life, she puts into some form of an acquaintance category.

So the first question we have to ask is what does the Bible really say about friendships?

But there's one more caveat I want to get to before we answer that question, and that's this, we as Christians need to understand the power of influence.

Influence is not a word you find a lot in the scriptures. It shows up every now and then. But the power of influence in our lives is, it's everything.

So if God exists and we have mankind, if he were just like a deist

God and set the world spinning and then stepped away, never influenced us, never spoke to us, never gave us his word, we would be lost.

We would have no way of knowing him. But the fact that God has written the scriptures, the fact that Jesus Christ came, the fact that the gospel can be spoken, the fact that Christians are supposed to be light and salt speaks to the fact that influence is desperately necessary.

We come into this world dead. We don't know the truth. We're enemies of God. We're running from him. We need to be confronted by the opposite.

And since the reality is that generally speaking, the people whom we call our friends are some of the biggest influences in our lives.

When we recognize the power of influence, how easily it is for us to lead us the wrong way or to lead us the right way, how necessary influence is.

I think about God not only commanding us to spread the gospel, but also the one another's. That is a relationship of influence in each other's lives.

When we see the power of influence and then we recognize exactly how much power we hand to these people that we call our friends, it should sober us up.

There should be a level of sobriety that drops onto our shoulders when we recognize, wow, I'm giving these people a lot of influence in my life by sheer virtue of the fact that I consider them to be a friend.

So with that foundation laid, number one, I think that many of us completely misuse the word friend.

We overuse it in a similar way like we do the word love too often. But then secondly, the deep and abiding reality that influence is universally important in our lives.

And we need to be very careful to whom we hand that influence. Then we have to ask, okay, what does the scripture say about friendship?

And I think the answer is actually very simple. The answer to that question is friends are people who love you.

But unfortunately, that doesn't answer our question because I just said that love is also an overused word that we use too much the wrong way.

But when we understand love from a biblical perspective, and I'll just sum it up here, love is, biblically speaking, wanting and working toward God's best interest in the life of the person you love, whether they want you to love them or not.

And that understanding of love, and you couple that with the idea of a friend, a friend is someone who biblically loves you.

I promise you, you're going to look at the friend list that you have, and you're going to realize that it's going to get a whole lot smaller because the friends that you hang out and all you ever do is talk sports, it's going to be hard to see them as somebody who's wanting and working toward God's best interest in your life.

If all you ever do is talk about sports, if all you ever do is talk about work, if all you ever do is talk about your hobbies, you guys go fishing every weekend, but you never talk about the single most important part of your life, your relationship with God.

Can that person really be considered a friend? Now, someone may argue semantics.

Oh, Aaron, that's semantics. It's completely appropriate to say that somebody is your friend who is an unbeliever or somebody who maybe all you ever do is fish together, but you don't really have that.

You don't dig deep into each other's lives and talk about your relationship with God. It's okay. You can still call that person your friend, and maybe you can.

Maybe you can, but here's my question. Then how do we distinguish between those types of friends, the ones who aren't necessarily biblically loving you, and the biblical ones?

You need to be able to grapple with that. I think it's dangerous when we just take everybody we know, everybody we like hanging out with, and throw them into the exact same pot and call them all friends.

Again, I hearken back to the reality that influence is so powerfully important in our lives.

The scriptures say that bad friends have a very negative impact on us.

A bad company corrupts good morals. We understand that iron sharpens iron. We understand that people faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy, those are destructive.

We understand the power of words. We understand all of this. So I think we Christians, we need to be far more,

I'll say, discriminating when it comes to our understanding of friendship. I'm assuming one of the ways in which that very fact is revealed is whether or not someone that we call our friend and actually maintain a friendship with, whether or not that relationship is bringing us closer to Christ or further away from Christ.

I have a tiny handful of people on this planet that are not

Christians, that I actually consider friends. One of them is really the only person from high school who remains in fairly regular contact with me, and I'm saying probably twice a year, maybe a little bit more.

But this friend, Blake, has never been an influence in a negative way to me.

He was the only friend that really supported and encouraged me when

I became a born -again believer. I can even remember when

I first quit drinking because I was notorious as a young man, as a drunkard, how much he supported me in that choice because his own father was a drunkard, and he believes that was an element of his father's life that led to an early death for him.

He died of a heart attack, I think, about the age that I am right now. I think he was about 60.

And then the flip side of that coin, as I seek to be a friend to Blake, I am always talking about the

Lord with him. I'm not talking about incessantly, like nonstop, because I think that we have to appeal to the interests of friends and so forth when we're having conversations, and I'm not talking about appealing to sinful interests, but we can't be evangelical robots either.

But he knows that the most prominent element of my character and life is my identity as a

Christian. And so how do you respond to that when I am speaking of somebody who

I do consider to be a friend, somebody I know who would give me the shirt off of his back, and actually has been in some ways kinder, more compassionate, and encouraging than the majority of Christians I know personally?

So how do you describe something like that? Well, first of all, I just want to start by saying that I like to give us clear extremes, help us to see the bookends of an issue.

The reality is we struggle with this concept of friendship. We flounder in the murky middle because we don't have a clear conception.

So I do want to stand by what I said earlier, that a friend wants and works toward God's best interest in your life.

And I would say that a friend who is consciously working toward that is going to be a better friend to you than someone who unconsciously works toward that.

Praise God for Blake. By God's common grace, Blake is encouraging

Christ -honoring behavior, has encouraged Christ -honoring behavior in life, whether he believes in God or not.

So for example, to encourage you in getting away from alcohol. Awesome.

That's fantastic. And that would fall in line with God's will for your life. Now, here's the key thing.

Now, I'm not going to speak specifically to yours and Blake's relationship, but let's say this. If I'm dealing with a young person and they have a

Blake in their life, somebody who isn't deliberately leading them astray and who actually deliberately is encouraging them to get good grades and to do their best on the football field and to stay away from drugs, right?

Is that person a good friend? And I would have to step back and I would have to have some warnings in there.

Because even though Blake or someone like Blake seems to be encouraging all the right things and discouraging all the wrong things, there is a very dangerous reality to that.

And it's very similar to most children's programming on television. Now, a lot of children's programming nowadays is going to the dogs.

But before, let's just say like Scooby -Doo, right?

These people, they are friends and they're beating the bad guy every time. Every episode is these people are growing in their friendships and they're meeting new people and the bad guys are always losing because of those pesky kids, right?

But here's the delusion. Here's the lie that creeps into our minds and especially young children.

I can make these friends and I can overcome the bad guys and I can thrive in a relationship and I can do all of this stuff at school and I can be the superhero without God.

See, Blake, one of the things interesting about him or somebody, people like him, and I can't, I don't know Blake.

So Blake, you're listening. I'm sorry. But people like him is that they're doing a lot of the right things, but they're doing them for the very wrong reasons.

And the very fact that a person is exemplifying to me or just to say a young person, how they can live a quote -unquote noble life, how they can live a quote -unquote good life, but without God being in the picture, that is in and of itself a negative example.

So I would say that if somebody is a mature Christian and they have a Blake in their life who is really an all -around good influence, and that mature

Christian is not going to be influenced to have a low view of God and think that, you know,

I can live a moral life without really needing to make God the focus, then I would say that would be okay.

But I would say that would be a very dangerous friendship for young people because, man, young people who are not discerning, young people who are already struggle with their own self -centeredness and self -worship, when they are surrounded by quote -unquote friends who are encouraging them to do good things, but they're doing it for godless reasons,

I have seen far too many a child fall into that self -worshipping trap and they become little Pharisees. Huh.

I remember one of the most powerful sermons my first pastor,

Mike Gaydosh, preached. He was my pastor when I was plunged into the waters of baptism by him, having been raised in the false religion of Roman Catholicism and later discovering biblical truth in the gospel and by God's grace and mercy, who opened my eyes, ears, and gave me a new heart.

I came to the true gospel and was transformed by the grace of God.

And Pastor Mike Gaydosh was that key figure as a minister and a brother and a friend and a mentor and a counselor, etc.

But he had a sermon that I can still remember the title and I remember how profoundly it impacted me.

Jesus, a friend of sinners and separate from sinners.

And he went into the depths of how Jesus, while he was in the presence of tax collectors, prostitutes, and other sinners, to demonstrate the fact that he was a loving and merciful and yet sinless being.

He extended friendship toward people like that and demonstrated so profoundly more than any other human could compassion and grace towards these people.

And yet, he didn't become like them. He didn't imitate them. He called them to imitate him and was there to call them out of darkness, out of the enslavement to their sin.

I can even remember vividly having a conversation with someone who professes to be a

Christian, identifies himself as a Christian, but the man has not been a member of a church in decades and uses profanity, uses drugs, and abuses alcohol.

And he has chastised me that he was more like Jesus than I am because look at who his friends are.

They are the dregs of society, the sinners. And I said to him, yeah, but keep in mind, you behave like them.

Jesus never behaved like them. Now, if you want to pick up where I just left off there. Well, okay.

So I think what you're touching on here has to do with the reciprocity of friendships. And I've done this.

I've spoken on this topic in chapels. I've spoken with adults, and I've polled people over and over and over again.

And I asked the question, is friendship reciprocal? And over 90 % of the time, 90 % of the people are going to say, yes, friendship is reciprocal.

If they're not my friend, I'm not their friend, especially the younger you get. I mean, 100 % of young children and young teens will say, yes, of course, friendship has to be reciprocal.

I mean, I can't be friends with my enemy, right? But that is a secular understanding.

You've just touched on the fact that biblical friendship is not reciprocal, and that there's a huge difference between being somebody's friend and having someone else be your friend.

Because Proverbs 17, 17 deals with the fact that a friend loves at all times.

John 15, 13 through 14, greater love has no man than this, that he laid down his life for his friend.

So to be loving is to be a friend. Romans 13, 8 tells us, owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.

I am expected by God to love everyone. And I'm sure most of your listeners are familiar with the fact that the

Bible says multiple times, Jesus himself tells us that we need to love our enemies. So an enemy is someone who wants my hurt.

They don't love me. Am I allowed to not love them?

Well, no, of course I have to love them. That's exactly what Jesus was doing. Jesus loves everybody.

He is everyone's friend, if I can put it that way. He is everyone's best friend. He sticks closer than a brother.

And that's exactly what we are called to do. We are called to be everyone's friend. We are called by God to love everyone, therefore wanting and working toward God's best interest in the life of everyone that we meet, whether it's my spouse, whether it's the lady ringing up my groceries at the grocery store, whether it's some stranger that I meet, somebody in my church.

I owe them that. Therefore, I am to be everyone's friend. That doesn't mean, however, that everyone is my friend.

And that's the key thing. Now, again, if we're going to define friend as we like to hang out together or they like me or things like that, then if we're going to use that mushy definition of friend, well, then we're having a different conversation.

But I'm talking about the fact if that individual doesn't biblically love me, then they're not biblically my friend.

But that doesn't mean that I should not be their friend. And we have to go to our first break right now.

If you have a question for A .M. Brewster on friendship, please send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And I could readily see this kind of a subject evoking questions that do involve very personal and private situations and involve people that we would not want identified on the air, obviously.

So in that case, we would not only give you permission to remain anonymous, we would encourage you to be anonymous.

But if it's just a general question on what the Bible has to say about friendships, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

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We're now back with A .M. Brewster. We are discussing a very important theme today, as I've already mentioned.

This is the nature of biblical friendship. Do you have them? Are you one? Our email address is

ChrisArnson at gmail .com, ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Before I go to any listener questions, I was wondering what your thoughts are on this particular area that we've already brought up.

We know that Jesus was a friend of sinners. We know that he was separate from sinners.

But the Pharisees, his worst enemies, did not distinguish those things. They believed that Jesus must have been himself a sinner in some way for him to have friendships with these sinners.

Whether they actually believed that or not is really another matter, but they accused him of being a sinner.

We, as Christians, want to imitate Jesus. We should make sure that we are extending love and compassion and benevolence to the lost, in addition to cultivating

Christian friendships with solid, theologically sound, dependable, reliable brothers and sisters in Christ.

But when it comes to new converts, especially when the new convert is a younger person, do you advise that there at least be a season in that person's life where they, as much as possible, refrain from having close connection and close relationships with the unbelievers, who may drag them backward into the sin that they abandon?

Great question. In short, the answer would be yes. I would definitely encourage that.

When somebody is saved out of any sin, whether it's alcoholism, when

I say saved out of any sin, obviously our salvation from death to life is all about what Christ has done with us.

But oftentimes, especially as that happens later in life, there are a number of other life -dominating sins that are a fruit of the fact that we're living separate from God.

So we use terminology like saved out of such and such. But yeah, somebody who has come to know

Christ, and they have been born again, and they are trying to break these life -dominating sins that have been associated with their self -worship, and they're now trying to give

God what He deserves, we oftentimes rightfully encourage them, now you separate yourself.

Chris, I'm sure you could speak to the fact that when you were trying to stay on the wagon, if we're going to use that terminology early on, it would have been very foolish for you to go to a place that was serving alcohol, because you weren't mature enough, you weren't strong enough to push back on that temptation.

And I would say the exact same thing would be true for a young person who was saved out of the world, and I would just say a spiritually immature person, because if they hold on to all the same friends, and they go to all the same places, and listen to all the same music, and entertain themselves in all the same way, they are not helping their spiritual growth.

They're really just distracting completely from it. Okay, we have an anonymous listener.

The anonymous listener says, I am encouraging my children who are in their teens and early twenties to first pursue friendships with people that they may one day intend to marry, and I was wondering how we are to counsel our young people to pick the correct friends of the opposite sex that may wind up being candidates for such an important step such as marriage.

Very good question. In fact, before you even answer that,

I've got to look something up, because it's one of my favorite quotes by J .I. Packer.

And let me see here. Okay, I just found it. And I want you to respond to this as well, and let me know if you love this quote as much as I do.

J .I. Packer said, The Puritan ethic of marriage was first to look not for a partner whom you do love passionately at this moment, but rather for one whom you can love steadily as your best friend for life, then to proceed with God's help to do just that.

I put that quote in cards every time a close friend, a brother and sister in Christ announces that they've become engaged, and that's a routine for me, a tradition for me to put that quote in there.

But if you could respond to not only that, but also to the listener question. Sure, yeah. No, I love that quote.

I love it because, again, it speaks to the counterintuitive nature of biblical friendship, and it flies in the face of what the, quote -unquote, average nominal professing

Christian thinks about love and romance. For sure, we've been far more influenced.

There's that word again, way far more influenced by the world's understanding of romance and attraction and all of that.

I think what this anonymous listener is doing, I think, is very valuable. In fact, when

I speak to young people sometimes in questions about, you know, I do a workshop called,

When Do I Get My Man? or When Do I Get My Woman?, you know, depending on my audience, and this always comes up.

What does the Bible say about what we would consider a dating relationship or that pre -engagement, right?

They're more than a, quote -unquote, friend and more than a friend, but, you know, we're not engaged and we're not married yet. What does the Bible say about that?

And to be completely honest, the Bible doesn't speak to those categories using those words.

The Bible has a couple different categories. First of all, there's the husband and wife category, and you know what?

That applies to only the husbands and wives. It doesn't, I don't care if you're engaged, I don't care if you're dating, I don't care if you like each other.

The passages that apply to husbands and wives specifically generally don't apply to those people who are not married.

Then there's a question of whether or not, from there on out, it's a question of whether or not the person that you're relating with is born again or not.

The Bible's very clear how I'm supposed to be relating to someone who is not saved. I'm supposed to have an evangelistic, light and salt relationship with them, drawing them to Christ.

And if the person is born again, the Bible's very clear about what my relationship with that person is supposed to be, boy or girl.

My responsibility to them is identical. I'm supposed to be helping them become more like Christ.

I'm supposed to be engaged in their discipleship. I'm supposed to be loving them, helping them to love God more. I use, and this is easy to picture in your mind, so I wish

I could draw this out for you, but if you just picture a triangle in your mind, and I think lots of people have encountered this illustration, if you put

God at the top of it, top of that triangle, and you put yourself at the bottom corner, and the person that you're interested in romantically in the other corner, the only way that those two dots on either corner of the triangle can actually get closer to each other is not to try to span the distance at the bottom of the triangle.

That actually doesn't work. History has shown us over and over again, experience has shown us over and over again that that doesn't work.

If I'm living for you and you're living for me, and we come out somehow meet in the middle, those relationships are doomed to failure because we shouldn't be living for each other.

However, if I'm living for God, and I'm encouraging my girlfriend or my fiancé or anyone in my life to live for God, then those dots on the triangle slowly start moving from the bottom corners up toward the pinnacle, up where God is.

Then the distance between those two dots also gets smaller. Maybe you have to go home and draw it out to see what

I'm talking about there, but that's a silly illustration to exemplify a very important biblical truth.

Relationships grow closer as we biblically love each other. As I am sharpening you, as I am drawing you toward Christ, as I am encouraging you in your walk with the

Lord, that is going to deepen our relationship. I love the book of Philemon. I turn to Philemon quite often in biblical counseling, especially when there's conflict resolution issues.

In the book of Philemon, we know that Onesimus, Philemon's servant, had stolen from him and had run away by God's sovereign grace.

Onesimus had run into Paul in Rome. Paul had led Onesimus to the Lord. Onesimus now is returning back to Philemon with a letter for the church in Galatia as well as a letter for Philemon from Paul himself.

Paul is basically, in this personal letter to Philemon, encouraging Philemon to be reconciled with Onesimus.

But here's the part I really, really love. It's a short letter, but there's so much powerful truth in it.

But the part I really love is this. Paul is sitting here in prison, kind of imagining why this whole situation has come about with Onesimus.

And he says in verse 15, for perhaps he was, for this reason, separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the

Lord. And the point I'm trying to make here is that there was a breaking of relationship. Onesimus stole from Philemon and ran away.

But Paul is suggesting in this verse here that if they can reconcile, the relationship they will have after the fact will be stronger than it ever could have been before the fact.

And I see that so often in biblical friendships. Not that we encourage sin so that we can be reconciled.

God forbid, you know, we don't encourage sin so that grace may abound. But oftentimes we look at sin in a relationship as being the death knell, right?

It's what's gonna end the relationship. But God says, no, if you can do what's in each other's best interest, if you can be reconciled, draw each other to Christ and mature together, that is the foundation of the strongest relationships and your relationship will be even stronger after the fact than it was before the sin ever occurred.

Wow. Amen. In fact, we have to go to our midway break right now. Please be patient with us.

It's the longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida requires of us a longer break because the

FCC requires of them to localize their programmers geographically to Lake City, Florida.

While they do that, we air our globally heard commercials. So please use this time wisely. Contact as many of our advertisers as you can.

And when you can't purchase anything, at least say thank you for sponsoring Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Also, send in your questions to AM Brewster to chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least your city and state and country of residence.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with AM Brewster right after these messages. Have you noticed the gap that exists between the

Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small group study? So often we experience great preaching from the pulpit, but when it comes time to study

God's word in those smaller settings, well, let's be honest, it leaves a lot to be desired.

It seems like it is nearly impossible to find good curriculum out there today that is true to the word of God and is built upon sound doctrine.

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May God bless you. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai, in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avino, and thanks for listening. When Iron Sharpens Iron radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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That's also the email address where you can send in a question to AM Brewster, and we are discussing friendship today.

More specifically, we are discussing the nature of biblical friendship. Do you have them? Are you one?

And that email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Okay, Aaron, before we go to any of our listener questions, what is a litmus test to determine whether or not you have friendships that reflect a biblical model?

And then you could move on to a more personal issue. Are you this kind of friend?

Yeah, very important question. So, first of all, I just want a quick reminder, anyone joining us as well, truthloveparent .com

forward slash iron. I have a lot of resources there for you to check out, because this topic of biblical friendship, some of the things

I'm saying may sound absolutely like off the wall, counterintuitive, crazy even. But by God's grace,

I'm not the only one saying it. So I have some podcast resources there that I've created, but there are also some podcast resources there created by other people.

There are a number of articles that I have linked, as well as John MacArthur has just a slew of sermons about friendship, and I have those linked there as well, including some ancillary resources.

So please check that out, because this is an extremely important conversation. Do you have friends? Are you a friend, a biblical friend, as God would define it?

And one of the things that, to answer your question, Chris, excuse me, I did a series on this on the celebration of God, and the third episode of that series was called

Identifying Fakes. And on that episode, I referenced something that Paul David Tripp had written, and it's called

Seven Trademarks of an Unhealthy Friendship. And I'm just going to read through these quickly to kind of whet your interest and get your brain going about your own friendships.

But number one, does the relationship have a tendency towards self -indulgence? Well, if it does, then it's just really all about you, and it's not really about God.

Number two, does the relationship have a tendency toward deceit? Are there lies being told in the relationship, or are there lies being told to other people that the person, your quote -unquote friend, is encouraging you to tell?

Does the relationship have a tendency toward anger? Does the relationship have a tendency toward selfishness?

Number five, does the relationship have a tendency toward unhelpful communication? At truthloveparent .com

forward slash iron, I have at the very bottom a related resource all about communication, the type of communication that Christian friends should have.

Number six, does the relationship have a tendency toward division? And seven, does the relationship have a tendency toward an unforgiving spirit?

And he works through Ephesians chapter 4 at each of these points in this article that he wrote.

Great questions to ask ourselves. But in Ephesians chapter 4 where it talks about the fact that God created the church to build itself up specifically by doing three things.

Number one, submitting to the authorities, the pastors that he's given us who are there to equip us for the work of the ministry.

But then two, to do the work of the ministry in two different ways, by speaking the truth and then speaking it in love.

And that is discipleship. That right there is biblical friendship. Now, I don't have to be –

I'm sorry, I'm going to mute myself for one second, clear my throat, and then I'll just be right back. Please excuse me.

So we've talked a lot about this. We've kind of hinted at it. Does a biblical friend only ever talk about God?

Obviously, I think the answer there is no. But a biblical friend, there are a lot of things to talk about.

I'm a friend with my wife. I'm going to have a date with her shortly after we finish up here.

We're going to go out, and we're going to talk about lots of different stuff. But my wife knows me, and she knows that I'm striving to everything that I speak and everything that I do to submit it to Christ.

I want him to be the one who gets to decide how I live my life, my entertainment choices, what

I eat, and so on and so forth. And so as I strive to live in a way that glorifies

God, it's a fulfillment of what we seek in Christ's words, be salt and light so that people, when they see your good works, do what?

They glorify your Father who's in heaven. Well, how are they going to glorify my Father who's in heaven if they don't know that I am a follower of Christ and trying to please him?

They can't do that. They won't do that. So this question about whether or not

I'm being a good friend is, am I speaking truth in love so that you yourself are being built up in Christ?

If that's the case, I'm one of the best friends you have. If you're doing that for me, you are one of the best friends that I have.

Now, again, I mentioned earlier that I've moved around a lot, and some of my dearest friends are not people

I've spent the most time with, but people who have had the biggest impact on me spiritually. And it's reciprocal to the degree that I'm the best friends to the people that I have helped them to grow spiritually.

And what's really interesting as a biblical counselor, complete strangers will come to me. They will come to me in brokenness.

They will come to me in crisis and in need, and by God's grace will open his word, and they'll find healing, and they'll find truth to meet them.

I'm speaking truth in love to them. I'm being a friend to them. And oftentimes, it's people that I've met with in biblical counseling who

I have the strongest relationships with. Why? Because that relationship brought us together on the things that mattered the most.

Now, that doesn't mean, again, that the guy I go fishing with every weekend, that I'm not his friend because I'm not helping him through some big crisis in his life.

But I should be speaking truth in love into his life. I should be being salt and light in his life.

I should be drawing him closer to Christ. And if I am, I'm being the best friend possible. And here's the key thing.

We need to stop being easy on ourselves. We need to stop giving ourselves passes. If I'm not doing what is in your best interest,

I'm hurting you. If I'm hurting you, I'm not being a friend. I'm being an enemy.

So I'm about to bare my heart here and share one of the biggest struggles that I have. I speak often.

I speak to large crowds. I speak when I want. I counsel. But sometimes when I'm just out in the world, living my life, going shopping or whatever else, it is very easy for me to not get into redemptive relationships.

I can very easily connect with people or connect with them about their interests and strike up a conversation with nearly every person, any person.

But oftentimes, and I do that well, I believe, because I'm focused on them, asking them questions, talking about what interests them.

But oftentimes when that person is an unsaved individual, it doesn't naturally, from their side, come to Christ.

And so oftentimes I'll walk away from that conversation, having encouraged them. There are a lot of artists around where I live, and a lot of people who also like to get out into nature and to hike and do things like that.

So we'll talk about their interests, and then 30 minutes have passed, and we'll go our separate ways, and I'll go, Oh my word,

I never once spoke to them about the thing that mattered most. So in that 30 minutes while I was encouraging them and we were laughing and they felt so built up and they really enjoyed the conversation, was

I really being a friend to them? Well, if I never see that person again, the answer is no. I was an enemy.

I had the truth. I had what they needed most. I had God's best interest for their life, and I was right there.

They were there, and I didn't share it with them. That is not friendly behavior. That's enemy behavior. And when

I've started to clearly delineate those two ideas, a friend is someone who draws people closer to Christ, and an enemy is someone who doesn't.

Man, oh man, I start to see the enemy behavior in my life. I'm an enemy when I sin against you by choosing to do you harm, but I'm also your enemy when

I sin against you by not leading you to Christ as I should, even if we had a great time watching the game, even if we had a great time fishing, even if we had a great time talking about work around the water cooler.

People still do that anymore. Even in those situations, I wasn't your friend if I didn't draw you closer to Christ.

Now, again, really quick, Chris, I'll hand it back over to you. Maybe we have a question. I do want to specify, again,

I'm not saying that every word that comes out of our mouth has to be about the Bible, has to be about God. Really, the type of relationship it is will define how frequently

I need to talk about that. With a complete stranger, this is my one chance on an airplane or at a coffee shop to speak to this person.

The necessity of me getting to the importance of the gospel is desperately important right away.

I can't afford to not get to that. This might be the only time I ever talk to them. But in a longer relationship, there are ebbs and flows, and there's more leniency, but there's more nuance to that.

Again, if the person knows that I'm following after Christ and I'm living in such a way that glorifies

God, they're going to see those good works, and they're going to give glory to God because they already know and they recognize, because of all the conversations we've had before, that I'm trying to live for Him.

Okay, we do have a listener question. We have another anonymous listener who wants to know, how can we tactfully warn someone who is a friend but who is smothering us with their attention and demand for our attention and company to the point of even being a borderline stalker?

Now, wait a minute. Is this Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries? I told you that I would back off.

No, I'm only kidding. And that is a good question, because there may be people that we really do care about and love.

We don't want to destroy the relationship, but I'm not talking about a stranger that's getting creepy in our lives and following us and stuff.

And I don't think the listener meant that either. But how do you be so tactful, and yet to a degree firm, where an actual change is made before that actually does destroy the friendship?

So, as I was listening to the question, my biblical counselor mind was kicking into gear, and I recognize the fact that there's a lot behind that question.

There is a relationship dynamic that I don't even begin to necessarily completely understand, or at all to completely understand.

But I can guess at some things. A relationship with a person so likes us that they're taking our time, that they are always seeking us out, that they're, quote -unquote, smothering us.

I mean, I've seen this live itself out in various forms. Oftentimes, it's the result of immaturity on the other person's part.

They really like us, or they idolize us, or they want to be like us, which is a little like idolizing, but maybe not as dramatic a word.

So therefore, they see us, and we're almost like a celebrity to them. And to be honest, I sometimes, in a very limited sense, have encountered this.

Sometimes I've had the privilege of talking to somebody on the phone who's a long -time listener of my podcasts.

And they'll say things like, I can't believe that I'm talking to you, and they're all excited.

So there are a lot of different reasons why things like that can happen. And most of the time, it's not bad.

Now, if a person is smothering me, they have bad intentions, I would have to get a lot more information about that type of relationship to really give a quality answer.

So let's just assume that this person just really likes you, and they just kind of take all your time.

Maybe they see you at church, and there's always hanging on you. It's like you can't go meet the new visitors, and you can't have a conversation with the pastor because this person is right there.

How do we work through that? Well, if you guys haven't figured it out yet, I'm a very straightforward individual. Really, Ephesians 4 .15

is one of my life verses. It's 1 Corinthians 10 .31. Whether we're eating or drinking or talking with somebody, we need to do all to the glory of God.

And God has commanded us to speak the truth in love. And here's the thing. Far too often, and in biblical counseling,

I encounter this all the time. The reason that we don't say the thing that we should say in the way that we should say it is either ignorance or fear.

That's pretty much it. We either don't know what to say or we're afraid to say it. And we're afraid to say it because we're afraid of hurting them.

We're afraid of how they might respond. But I have found that the single best way to deal with these issues is to speak the truth in love.

An example of this is I used to work at a Christian school, and I was the dean of students. So I was involved in a lot of corrective discipline of the students.

And a friend of mine who was also taught there, and he was and is actually still a friend of mine. He said to me one time, he said,

Aaron, I just don't understand it. I see these parents walk into your office and you just tell they're so angry.

You're like, they want to punch you in the face. And then a few minutes later, 20 minutes later, they're walking out of your office and you guys are hugging and there are tears.

It's like, what is going on in there? And I said, well, David, honestly, if you genuinely love somebody's child, like you actually biblically love them and you are striving to do what is in their best interest, the parents may disagree with you on what you are doing, but they can't help but appreciate the fact that you genuinely love their child.

And when I when I've sat there in those situations with parents or with other people in difficult situations, and I've just said, hey, man,

I just want you know, I really appreciate you as a person. I'm thankful that God has brought you into my life. I know that you are in my life because God wants to use you to grow me.

And God wants to use me to grow you. But at the same time, I have to ask myself the question, are there other people that God wants me to use and to grow?

You know, have you noticed that the past few Sundays in church, you have been at my arm the entire time that the pastor wasn't preaching?

And though that was great in so many ways, it also kept me from being able to have some really important conversations with other people.

And you say, well, wow, Aaron, you're just being straight to the point. And that's true. But I hope you also can hear my voice.

And if you saw me face to face, see on my face the fact that I mean every word I say. I value you as a person.

I value this relationship. But there are other things that I need to be doing and things that you should be doing.

Maybe as part of that conversation, I'm equipping them. I'm helping them to see that, hey, you know what? There's this other young person over there.

They're not nearly as friendly as you are. They're kind of shy. And I think it'd be really awesome those times that you're not hanging out with me and talking with me.

You go talk to that person. I'm equipping them to be a good friend to other people.

Now, perhaps, you know, the examples I'm giving are nowhere near the listener's real situation.

Who knows the age difference and who knows whether or not the person has the same sex as they and all that kind of stuff.

There are so many caveats, so many things involved in that question. But I would just say simply in all of our relationships, it is always best for us to speak the truth in love.

We need to do that. And that is what is going to result in us building each other up. Excellent.

And that reminded me of something that I have witnessed and perhaps have even been the guilty party, especially years ago, involving this is

I have seen folks I know get really angry and have even come to the point of subsequently slandering people.

For instance, maybe a guest speaker that you have come to preach at a conference at your church.

She's very well known, or she is very well known, not that she would be preaching, of course, but she might be speaking at a women's group.

But a person who is a published author, a well -known conference speaker, radio or television evangelist, etc.,

etc., etc. And when that person has to break away from a conversation or just give a very brief few words to somebody who has approached them for an autograph on their book that they have written, or whatever else the person wants to communicate to this well -known individual, when the person has to be fairly abrupt, even if they are polite,

I have witnessed people just be really nasty, not to the person in their own earshot or to their face, but who have come to me and said, that person is a phony, that person is not really acting as a

Christian, they won't even give me the time to discuss a book that I am writing.

You could go on and on and on with the things that they say. Don't we have to be very patient and learn that we are not the center of the universe, even though we think that these famous people view themselves that way, and we could be very wrong about that.

But when these people are being bombarded with people wanting their attention after a speaking engagement, they need to not only have time to respond to other people and communicate and greet other people that are there, sometimes they just need a breather after they have just poured out their hearts and minds and souls at a speaking engagement like a conference.

Anything you care to add to that? Yeah, I would say that is very unfriendly behavior.

Obviously, no one would want us to treat us that exact same way. Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the whole law.

Love hopes all things and love believes all things. That person, maybe they seem to short with me for some reason, but I should hope all things and believe all things.

And if they actually have sinned against me, that does not justify my sin. That person is being my enemy, so I get to be their enemy.

Well, the biblical reality is that I never have permission to be anybody's enemy. Never, ever. I owe that person love.

Even if they're my enemy, I'm supposed to do what is in their best interest. So, the reality is we're myopic, selfish, idolatrous people, and we like to find reasons to be offended because if we are our

God, right, if we are our own God and you do something I don't like, I have the right to throw lightning bolts, right?

But that's not biblically accurate. That's not true at all. And so, we need to be patient with people.

We need to be willing to extend to them the same grace that we would want them to extend to us.

So, yes, too often we are not friends. And in fact, it is in our most critical, our most complaining moments that we're actually the worst friends.

Like that person may have been an enemy to us. They may have done something wicked to us, but our response is filled with no less animosity toward them than theirs were to us.

And we don't have a leg to stand on in that moment. We have

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks, There are people involved in ministry who

I believe sometimes far too frequently use as an excuse to not being more attentive to your own needs the fact that they have wives and children that come first in their lives.

Now, I wholeheartedly agree with that, that their wives and children do come first.

But I'm talking about the person who habitually uses that as a reason not to respond to somebody who might be in distress or in urgent need of pastoral counsel care at a spur -of -the -moment situation.

How do you respond to that? And this was Arnie, correct? Yes, A -R -N -I -E.

Thank you, Arnie, for that question. I tell you what, man, that actually hits at one of the main points I wanted to make today, and that is this.

Discipleship is not happening in the Christian church the way it should be. And yes,

I'm going to say that. I'm going to say it dogmatically. I'm going to say it when we paint with a broad brush. I'm not saying that's not happening at all.

I'm saying that generally speaking, that is the one area of corporate worship where we fail. Yes, we go.

We listen to the preaching. Yes, we pray. Yes, we sing. But are we one -anothering? Are we speaking truth and love into each other's lives while we are there?

Are we discipling within the context of the church corporately and then individually outside the church?

And the answer is no, we're not. Again, I've moved around a lot, and I think in many ways that has been part of this process, that people feel like they have to get to know a person before they're considered close friends and able to speak truth into each other's lives.

And of course, all of that's not true. It's more excuses that we have. But man,

I have not been discipled face -to -face, truly biblically discipled in most of the churches

I've attended. And I've attended fantastic churches. So that's us in the pew.

We need to judge ourselves. Are we really engaged in life -on -life discipleship, biblical friendship relationships with people in our churches?

And we need to start with ourselves. And when you realize that we have a lot of excuses for why we don't do that, and pastors do too.

For sure, pastors do. In fact, oftentimes I have found that the pastor seems to be the person involved in the least amount of one -on -one discipleship.

And oftentimes it comes down to, and I can't judge them all, of course, but I've seen pastors who are just rather antisocial people.

I've seen pastors who don't use their time wisely. I've seen pastors who have bad priorities.

They're just like us, okay? All the same reasons that we're not discipling people are the exact same reasons that they're not discipling people.

So I would say let's start with ourselves. Let's deal with the log in our own eye that we can see clearly to deal with the sliver that's in their eye.

And then we need to deal with it. Because guess what, Arnie? If you've encountered a pastor who's like that, then one of the best ways that you can be a friend to him is to speak truth and love.

To go to him and say, Hey, man, I really appreciate the influence you've had over my life. I appreciate that your sermons, how you open up God's truth.

But I just want to kind of put something into your ear. I want to challenge you on this idea. You know, as our shepherd, right?

There have been times I have come to you in deep need. And, you know, maybe there should be other people in the church who can help you with this.

And I haven't found them. And if you want to point me to them, I'd love to speak with them. But I've been hurt and I've been looking for help.

And I've come to you and it seems that you never have time to help me, to disciple me, to help me in this situation.

And I just want to encourage you that I view you as my spiritual leader and the ender shepherd.

And if I can't go to you, can you at least help me go to somebody else? And so on and so forth. So many different things that we could say.

But don't justify not being his friend. Don't justify pushing away from him and stiff -arming him because he's not being the friend he needs to be to you.

Remember, friendship is not reciprocal and animosity is not reciprocal either.

We are commanded to be everyone's friend. And you mentioned something in that answer, and I may be using a different term just because of a poor memory, but I think you said something about the pastor might not be a people person.

Is that what you said? Yeah, I said antisocial. But yeah, people person is good. They should find a different calling then.

I would agree. I really would. I mean, if a person is just in love with the sound of their own voice, and they love being in a point, standing in a point of elevation behind a pulpit above a crowd and demonstrating their great oratory gifts and demonstrating their brilliant knowledge of Scripture, but they have no compassion, care, concern, love for the people to whom they are speaking and preaching and teaching, they should be really finding themselves more of a vocation involving being an author or whatever else they want to use their gifts to glorify

God, or they really have to overcome their mindset and behavior of being antisocial.

One or the other has got to go. I mean, right? Yeah, exactly. And I would say, to your point, obviously, that's one extreme.

Obviously, there's a certain arrogance and egotism to that position for sure. I think there are some people, though, who just truly love exegeting the

Word, and they truly love preaching, but they struggle with interpersonal relationship. And that's not a pass.

It's not that they love to hear the sound of their own voice, and they don't like people.

It's just that they, like many other people in your church likely, are quote -unquote shy or a little awkward.

I mean, as somebody who deals a lot with parents, every single time I meet a child and I think to myself, what kind of a parent would have a kid like this?

The moment I meet the parent, I'm always like, oh, that kind. Okay. And so maybe that pastor had awkward parents.

And that pastor, they love God, and they love God's Word, and they do love people, but honestly, they're awkward.

I've encountered many people like that. And what we need to do is we need to love them, and we need to help them.

And they need to grow, and that's an area of maturity that they need to grow in. I, myself, by nature, because growing up, was very much of an introvert, very selfish, and very much of a loner.

And I've had to learn to love other people, and to be honest, we all do. Regardless of our personalities, we all have to learn to love other people and to love them well and to prefer them above ourselves.

Well, we have to go to our final break. It's going to be more brief than the other breaks. If you want to send in a question, we do have a few folks waiting to hear their questions asked and answered by A .M.

Brewster. But if you want to get in line, please do so as quickly as possible, because we are rapidly running out of time.

Send your questions to ChrisArnson at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with A .M. Brewster right after these messages. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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Brewster, we have another anonymous listener who says, What is your best advice to people, especially during the holidays, who are home alone and heartbroken over the loss of a loved one in your life, whether it is through death, divorce, or other reason?

Yes, the breaking of relationships can have a huge impact on us, regardless of why the relationship has been broken, whether due to sin or no fault of anyone, like as in death.

I would encourage you to do the exact same thing I would encourage everyone to do, that is to turn to Christ.

Jesus is our greatest friend. He is our Creator. He is our King. He is our God. And this is not meant in any way to sound trite.

Too often we slap that criticism on such counsel, but the reality is true.

How are we to have perfect peace? Our minds need to be stayed on Him. Also, I would say that in those times when it's very easy for us to be tempted to look inward, to focus on what we have lost, it's very amazing for us to focus outward and to serve other people, to prefer others above ourselves, to outdo each other in showing honor, to owe other people love.

And when we do that, when we're serving other people, it's very hard to be focused on that repeating reel in our mind, reminding us about how lonely we are and how friendless we are at this time.

And remember, he who has friends must show himself friendly. So that loss in your life, no doubt, is leaving quite a big hole.

But by God's grace, he wants other people in the church to lift you up and to build you up and encourage you.

And one of the best ways to get those relationships going is to start one yourself. And, of course, on the flip side of that,

I'm sure you would agree that those of us in the body of Christ who are surrounded by friends and loved ones during the holidays especially, we have to really contemplate and start drawing up a list even of who is it in the congregation or in the neighborhood that I can drop by with a plate of food,

I can invite them over to my own home for a time of fellowship, a time of feasting, a time of rejoicing and celebrating the holidays, where we are taking the initiative rather than the person who themselves is isolated in their home that may even become during the holidays feeling like a prison.

Exactly. Amen. Are we being the friends we should be when we don't even know the people in our church, the people in our communities well enough to know what they need?

How can we do what's in God's best interest in their lives if we're completely ignorant of it?

It's true. Now, we are finite. We can only invest in a certain number of people. But, you know, the scriptures have a good advice for that as well.

There should be people who are more spiritually mature than we are investing in our lives. There should be people at the same level of spiritual maturity that we're sharpening one another.

And there should be people in our lives who are lower down, younger in their spiritual maturity that we are bringing up. Too often we surround ourselves with that middle group and we don't really put ourselves under the more mature group.

And we're not really seeking out the people who need our help the way we should. And I think we need to get more attention to those two extremes.

Well, I want you to now have some uninterrupted time to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners about this topic today.

Well, when it comes right down to us, like I said earlier, we need to deal with the log in our own eye. It's really easy for us to hear something like this and to pass judgment, maybe even accurate judgment on the people in your lives who are those fake friends, people who are enemies, people who aren't loving you and discipling you the way they should.

It's always easy to play the victim. It's always easy to focus on that. But I would encourage us to really focus first and foremost on us and God's expectations for us.

That is the biggest thing, the biggest takeaway. And so the reality of the situation is this.

What does God expect from us as we relate to various individuals in our lives?

Well, first of all, all of our relationships must be redemptive. Every single one of them. That means that if the person is not born again, it is our responsibility to be focused on evangelism.

That is the best way we can love them. It is to be speaking that truth and love to them, drawing them to Christ.

If the person is born again, we need to be focused on discipleship. It's not just about hanging out. It's not just about enjoying each other's company.

It's about we have a limited time on this earth. God has left us here and he's left us here for two reasons. One, to bring others to him and two, to mature in our likeness of Christ.

And so we need to be helping each other do that. So all of our relationships need to be redemptive. That means

I'd rather focus on evangelism or discipleship. And we're never allowed to be anyone's enemy.

We have to love people. And the last thing I would say is this. As we started off the show, the question ends up being, there are oftentimes negative influences on our lives and influence is huge.

So what do we need to do in order to make certain that we are responding properly to the right influences and responding properly to the wrong influences?

We have to really manage those. We have to make sure there are lots of great influences in our lives and we need to submit to those influences when they speak

God's truth and God's love. And that doesn't mean that we disconnect completely from all bad influences. Obviously, we need to be in the world but not of the world.

We need to be like Christ, being a friend to the publicans and the centers. But we need to make certain that we're not allowing them to influence us in the areas that doesn't please the

Lord. We are there in that relationship to draw them to Christ. We love them. We're not superficial with them.

We're genuine with them. But we also are not giving them permission. And what I mean by that is I'm in my brain recognizing the fact that this person should not have a big sway over my life.

I don't go to them looking for certain kinds of advice and things like that. I need to manage that influence as I continue to be a good influence on them.

And if we're doing that, if we're in redemptive relationships and we're managing those influences in a way that glorifies God, you will find that your relationship, those friendships with people will deepen, will be a better impact on you and on the other person.

Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have your websites and the other contact information that they will need to keep in touch with you and to learn more about you and to benefit in a greater way from your ministry.

I know that one that we have announced is TruthLoveParent .com, and that's forward slash iron, right?

Correct. Yeah, there's two other websites that might be interesting to you. Another ministry of Evermind Ministries is the

Celebration of God. If you go to CelebrationofGod .com, lots of resources there about personal discipleship, as well as AMBrewster .com.

That's where people like to reach out to me if they're interested in having me come and speak at their church or school or camp.

Yes, and I would strongly encourage you to do that. And I want to remind our listeners, please, with the

Christmas season coming up, or we're actually in the Christmas season, but with Christmas Day coming up and not far after that, we have

Valentine's Day, we go to RoyalDiadem .com if you are interested in purchasing jewelry, either for yourself or someone you love.

And for a limited time, we don't know when the cutoff point is, but for a limited time,

Iron Troupe and Zion Radio is receiving 100 % of the profits from all sales by RoyalDiadem .com

for that limited time. So please, make sure you visit that site and mention

Chris Arnzen of Iron Troupe and Zion Radio. And of course, don't forget one of our premier, our primary sponsors,

Solid -Brown -Books .com, Solid -Brown -Books .com, and purchase books for yourself and for those you love for Christmas and any other occasion.

Books can be a primary way that the Lord leads the lost to himself and also further equips his true children so that they may be even more ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within them.

So Solid -Brown -Books .com, always mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Troupe and Zion Radio when making a purchase.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write. Of course, I want to thank A .M.

Brewster for being such a superb guest once again. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater