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[Music] Speaking from Grove City College Chapel, Grove City, Pennsylvania, Dr. Bruce W. Thielman brings you a message, "When Friendship Falters." [Music]

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Let us give reverent attention to the reading of God's Word, as it is recorded in Paul's letter to the Christians who lived in Galatia, the sixth chapter, beginning the reading at the verse which is numbered one. "Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass,

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you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

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But let each one test his own worth, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each man will have to bear his own load." May God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his Word.

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Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Some years ago, the New England transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau wrote these words, "Harvard cost me too much for what it taught me,

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but it charged me nothing for the most valuable thing I got there, my friends." It is the belief that friends are of crucial importance in the living of life that has led us in the last weeks to be thinking about friendship. We considered first its strengthening ministry,

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as we talked about friendship as a threefold cord. We next discussed how you initiate friendship, the four steps to beginning a deep personal relationship with another. Then we talked about how friends ought to treat one another,

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asking the question, "Am I my brother's brother?" Tonight, I want to talk with you for a few minutes about what to do when friendship falters. There are certain things which can kill a friendship.

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For example, if you go to another inviting a friendship, and that other rejects you from the very beginning, then friendship cannot be born. It is aborted. It is dead from the beginning.

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Or again, if you go to another with the invitation to openness, and the other responds, but you find that either you or the other individual is unable to accomplish that openness, that is, if you are too locked within yourself and are unwilling to share,

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or that one with whom you are seeking to build a friendship is unwilling to share, that is, if there is no real openness, then friendship will die. Or again, if you achieve openness with another, but you find that your intimacy, your relationship, lacks spark and lacks power

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because you do not have a common purpose or goal, that kind of friendship will almost invariably come to naught. And perhaps saddest of all, if you achieve openness with someone, and you find that you do have common purpose and goal,

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but that as you become more deeply involved with the other, and as the other becomes more deeply involved with you, you both, because of hang-ups perhaps collected a long time ago, find yourselves being frightened by this new intimacy,

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that is, if as people discover more about you and you discover more about them, there is a tendency in you to become growingly defensive and growingly hostile, or perhaps that tendency in the other, so that openness begets hostility instead of love.

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Well, that kind of attitude can kill friendship. There are then these things that can end friendship, but I would submit to you tonight that friendship, if it is meaningful, should never be ended by an argument.

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It should never be terminated because of a difference. It should never come to an end because of some prejudice or preference, which for a moment assumes an importance it doesn't honestly have. Friendship should never come to an end because of a disagreement.

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We need to learn, you see, how to disagree without being disagreeable. We ought never to blow important relationships for unimportant reasons. What do you do when you're in a friendship that begins to falter because of these kinds of things?

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Well, I would suggest that the Scriptures speak to us of this and very specifically speak to us of this here in the sixth chapter of Galatians. Paul says the first thing we are to do when a friendship falters is to seek to restore the friendship.

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And the word "restore" which he uses is a very particular one. It was the word which was used to describe the restoration of a broken bone, the mending, the healing of a broken bone. Now, one thing about a broken bone is that when you've got one, you know it.

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You can't very well deny the reality of a broken bone. You've got to have it fixed else the pain of it will drive you to distraction. And that's what Paul is trying to say to us here. He's saying when a friendship gets in trouble,

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you ought to feel it just like you feel a broken bone. And feeling it, you do something about it. You see, there are a lot of people who when friendship begins to falter try to pretend it isn't really happening.

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They try to push it down somewhere where they won't notice what has occurred. Have you ever picked up the newspaper and read a story about a judge who has granted a man a divorce, let's say, because his wife keeps pigeons in the attic? Occasionally you'll see a story that's just that silly in the paper.

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Now, you're smart enough to know that the divorce wasn't really granted because the lady happened to keep pigeons in the attic. Actually, behind that story there are a whole series of events, a whole series of differences and dissensions which have accumulated across the years.

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And finally, the straw which breaks the camel's back occurs, and they go to court, and some wise court reporter is sitting there, and he writes a little human interest story implying that it was the pigeons that caused the whole thing to come to pass.

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In point of fact, it was a whole series of events, but events which were pushed under, events which were hidden and allowed to fester until they finally erupted into something far uglier than that which would have occurred had they tended to the matter immediately.

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Paul says, "Treat a faltering friendship like you'd treat a breaking bone. Deal with it immediately." Now, that's very difficult counsel for us to hear because we're afraid to talk about these kinds of things with our friends.

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We have, you see, in our friendships a great deal of fear. We're afraid, for example, that our friend, on hearing us talk about this, won't want to be our friend anymore. Will want to separate from us. That sends fear into us.

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How is it that a professor can be afraid of his students? That a superior can be afraid of a subordinate? That a 200-pound male can be afraid of a 98-pound female? It happens, you see, because there is a great fear there of the loss of friendship and relationship.

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We don't want that to happen. And sometimes in moments of real openness, we look into the eyes of our friend and we see there a special kind of fear that says that he's afraid of losing us. And when we discover that our friend is fearful of losing us,

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just as we are fearful of losing him, then a double embarrassment comes upon us because in the first place we're embarrassed to discover that he is afraid, and in the second place we are afraid we will embarrass him if we reveal to him that we know he is afraid.

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In either instance, you see, we draw back from sharing what needs to be shared when the friendship begins to falter because we're afraid of what the consequences might be. Now the Word of God says about that kind of circumstance this. It's written in the Book of Proverbs.

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"Faithful are the wounds of a friend." It is sometimes necessary for one friend to wound another, but those wounds are to be faithful wounds. They are to be healing wounds.

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Sometimes, for example, when you confront another over a faltering dimension of your friendship, you might display a little bit of anger. Oftentimes we reveal more of ourselves in moments of anger than we do in hours of peace. Many times real truth about ourselves is communicated in sentences which are choked with anger.

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And that anger, you see, can have a good and a positive effect. Now I'm not saying to you, you know, that you ought to go out tonight and find your best friend and say, "Well, the preacher told me it's okay tonight to let you have it, so here it comes. Get ready." I'm not suggesting that at all.

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But what I am suggesting is that whenever a friendship falters, we must be open enough and real enough to talk about what's genuinely going on in our lives. Share it. Get it out. Where it can be dealt with, mended, and healed.

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Let me give you an illustration of what I mean. A friend was in Daytona Beach, Florida about this time a year ago. It was Easter. And the beaches were crowded with thousands of college students.

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He happened to be walking along the beach and to meet a young man whom he'd known for a good number of years and whom he very highly respected. He had, even though he was older, a deep friendship with this young man. When the young man saw him coming, he immediately folded his arms across the front of his sweatshirt,

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concealing the words which were written on the front of the sweatshirt, but not before the older man had seen them. So the older man says, "What's your sweatshirt say? Something about the University of Virginia?" "No." Still standing like this.

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"Well, what does it say?" Slowly the boy took his arms apart, and there across the front of the sweatshirt were the words, "Help stamp out virginity." The older man looked at him for a moment and said, "You know, I have an idea."

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"I think you ought to take that sweatshirt home, and I think you ought to have it dry cleaned." "And then you ought to wrap it very carefully in a plastic bag, and you ought to put it on a shelf in your cupboard." "Now, you're a very good-looking fellow, and you're going to be very successful, I'm sure." "And you're going to find a lovely wife and have some fine children."

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"And there will come a time off somewhere in the future when your oldest daughter" "she'll be 14 or 15 years old, will have her first really heavy date." "And on that occasion, you go to the cupboard, and you take down that sweatshirt which says, 'Help stamp out virginity.'" "And you give that to your dear little girl to wear on that date."

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And the young man looked at him for a moment, and then he took off the sweatshirt and threw it away. Now, were we to have encountered that fellow on the beat, we might have just laughed, which would have been to be indifferent to what could be potentially a very serious matter. Or we could have come on with anger and hostility if we thought that was a wrong thing and been judgmental about it.

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Or we could have come on like this older man did, speaking as a father, out of his heart. He said gently, but nonetheless persuasively, openly and freely, where he was about this whole thing. He revealed his own heart about it. He was echoing Scripture's teaching when he did that.

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"Better a frank word of reproof than the love which will not speak." And because he revealed himself in the way that he did, the young man responded. Now, sometimes it won't happen this way. Sometimes when you go to another with something that has arisen between you and your friend,

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and you come on as openly as you can at the moment, your counsel will be rejected. Suppose, for example, that this young fellow had laughed and walked away and had done nothing whatever about the sweatshirt. Well, I would suggest that you learn to recognize that when that happens, you are not being rejected and your ideas are not being rejected.

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I would suggest instead that what's being rejected is the manner in which you approach the person. You have not been open enough. I've come to the conclusion in my own personal relationships that when things arise between me and another, and I go to them and they don't hear me,

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they reject what I'm suggesting to them and they spurn my feelings, whatever they happen to be, it's almost invariably because I haven't really been open and genuine enough in expressing what's inside of me. I had a good illustration of this just this last week. I'm having a terrible time getting my class in religion, philosophical view of life, to talk.

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It's like the inside of a pyramid at midnight in there. Very quiet. And when something is said, it's often just an echo of what I have said. And that's never very interesting.

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And so I've talked to the class about this on numerous occasions since last October when I came and without any success. And finally this last week, in real desperation and frustration, I just laid it all out. I just told them I couldn't understand it. The last test had been nothing but an echo of everything that I had said before.

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I didn't know what I could do to possibly get them to talk, and I spilled it in a way that I hadn't spilled it before, I think very plainly. And they heard me. And they responded.

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They said things like, "Well, the trouble is that everything you hand to us has already been dunked in Calvinism." Or, "Sometimes you don't lecture to us, you preach." Or, and this one was a dandy. I can't imagine it to be true.

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They said, "You come on in a dominant manner." And there was an honest exchange. For the first time I'd been open enough, revealing the frustration of the thing, and they immediately responded with an equal truth.

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And so we've entered into an agreement that now whenever I start to preach, or whenever I start to become too dominant, or whenever I start to dunk things in Calvinism, they're going to start snapping their fingers. And I hope that when that happens, and I'm sure it's going to happen at least by Tuesday,

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that I will understand that they're not rejecting me, and they're not even rejecting what I'm saying, they're rejecting the manner in which I'm saying it. And that's what we need to understand when we go to people in relationships of friendship

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to try to straighten things out. If we go with openness, they may reject the manner of the openness, but we've got to understand that that doesn't mean they're rejecting us. We don't have to be so afraid.

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Open caring is the way to restore, and restoration must take place. And that right quickly. That's the first thing that Paul says. Now the second thing he says is this.

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If this doesn't work, then get a person to serve as a kind of spiritual arbiter. Get some individual who is full of love and joy and peace and patience and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and let that individual bring peace between you and your friend.

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Now when Paul talks about first going and trying to settle the matter yourself, and secondly getting someone else to serve as an arbiter between you and the one with whom you're having a difficulty, he is echoing exactly our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus says in Matthew 18, "First go and seek to work it out yourself,

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and if that doesn't work, then go with somebody else." Now I think it's very important that we notice certain things about this spiritual arbitration. The first thing we have to notice is that the arbiter must be aware of the fact that in almost every such circumstance, there's going to be guilt on both sides of the question.

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As a person who's done an awful lot of marriage counseling, let me tell you, I have never in almost two decades of ministry encountered a marriage difficulty, a marriage hard situation in which the guilt was all on one side. If the time ever comes for me to suggest any additions to the Bible,

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the sentence which I'm going to suggest is this, "Those who bug shall be bugged. Those who create difficulty shall find themselves encountering difficulty." This is what happens in altercations between friends. It's very rare indeed that all the difficulty is on one side.

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Now sometimes it's very hard for us to see that. And here's where the arbiter has to be especially sensitive. You're familiar with the Skinner box. B.F. Skinner has this box. He puts a rat in the box. The rat goes over and steps on a button. When he steps on the button, a food pellet is given to him.

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Every time he steps on the button, he gets a food pellet. One of the things they've discovered out of this box is that the longer the length of time which elapses between the moment when the rat steps on the button and the moment he gets the food pellet, the harder it is for him to learn the association between the two events.

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If he steps on the button and receives the pellet, he learns that very quickly. But if he steps on that button and then three or four minutes go by before he receives the pellet, it's going to take him a long, long time to learn that stepping on the button is what causes the pellet to appear. The longer the time between that which causes the situation and the situation which occurs because of it,

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the harder it is to grasp the association. So it is when we get into a difficulty with a friend and an arbiter comes in. It may have been a long time since the thing we did which has now caused our friend to react in the way that he does. But the arbiter has to be sensitive to the fact that almost invariably in that kind of situation,

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there's going to be some guilt on both sides. And this should lead him to something else. This should lead him to encourage the two friends who are having a difficulty to each focus on his own part in the problem. You see, when friends get close to each other, they discover things about each other,

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and the more you know about another person, the easier it is for you to cut them. The easier it is for you to hit them and to hit them hard. That's the reason there should never be any ridicule in an arrangement in which two friends are trying to get their lives back in line again. As a man who is not married, I must confess that I am sometimes astonished at the ridicule which I hear husbands direct at their wives,

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or wives direct at their husbands. I don't understand it. I sat in a home a couple of months ago, and we were at the dinner table, and this man had a very fat wife. And we were talking about the stock market, the economy, as so many people are today.

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And in the course of the conversation, he looked at me, and then he looked at his wife, and he said, "You know, my wife is the only investment I ever made that never stopped growing." And you know, I almost died for that woman when he said that. I can understand why she's fat.

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Fat people, you know, are fat because they eat too much, but there's a reason that they eat too much, and I think he was one of her main reasons. There is no place for that kind of ridicule within a relationship of love, which is what friendship is supposed to be. Marriage is only the most intimate form of friendship.

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Karen Horney has said in her neurotic personality of our times that the greatest harm to people in our times is the lack of warmth and sensitivity in our communication. You see, when your friend gets angry at you, it not only hurts because he's your friend, it's because he knows you enough to hit you where you most need to be hit.

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He knows your weaknesses, and he can hit them hard, and that's hurtsome. So I want to lay this down, I want to lay it down so clearly that if you don't remember anything else as you go out of here tonight, you'll remember this. There is no place for punishment in a friendship relationship.

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One friend is never justified in punishing another. It is important, you see, that two friends in that kind of a situation be brought by their arbiter to the place where they look at themselves, not at one another. Bring themselves out into the light. That's the way John puts it.

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When we walk in the light as Christ is in the light, then we will have fellowship with one another. It's when we see our own sin that we can begin to be freed of it, and then go to our brother and help him to be free of his. This, of course, requires a great deal of patience, especially on the part of the arbiter who's trying to bring two friends together.

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A patience which is built on his self-confidence, his belief that he can do it. A patience that is built upon his conviction that what he's doing is worth doing, that the friendship is worth saving. A patience that is built upon the knowledge that the healing process is a slow one. And most of all, a patience which rests on the fact that he realizes how much patience God has had with him.

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Before you can seek to bring two friends together, you've got to have a real grip on what it's cost God to bring you to togetherness with him. During the Crimean War, there was a British nun who was also a nurse, and she was ministering to some soldiers of the enemies who had been wounded. And one of these soldiers cursed her the whole time that she sought to minister to him.

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And a doctor witnessing this scene said to her, "I couldn't do that for 10,000 pounds." And she replied immediately, "Neither could I." Saying of course she couldn't have done it for any amount of money, but she could care for one who cursed her because she knew that God had cared for her in spite of her sins against him.

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Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." The final patience of a peacemaker is his knowledge that he was brought into sonship with God because of the patience of his father. You see, everything that I'm saying tonight, every word of Paul's that I am echoing about restoring relationships, about spiritual arbitration, about gentleness, about walking in the light,

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about bearing our brother's burdens and seeking to understand ourselves so that we can help to bear our own, all of this may be included under one word, and that word is forgiveness. That's what it's all about. Forgiveness. That of course is never easy.

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Paul says that the love that forgives, hopes all things, and endures all things, that it never ends and it never fails. And that's tough. Love has to be tough. I read just recently Pierre Barbette's book, "A Doctor at Calvary." He's a French physician, and he has sought to analyze the crucifixion of Jesus in medical terms.

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He points out that death by crucifixion is death by suffocation. You are, when crucified, not nailed through the hands. Because you see, the weight of the body is borne by those nails, and if it's only through the frail palm, the nail will tear through the flesh and the body will fall.

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The nail of crucifixion is driven through the wrist, through the heavier bones which will support it. Now as the body is suspended at these two points of intense pain, there is a gradual cramping and contraction and paralysis which begins at the wrist, moves across the arms into the shoulders, and down across the chest into the abdomen.

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Eventually this paralysis reaches the diaphragm, the great muscle which controls the breathing. What happens is you can breathe in, but you can't breathe out. And as a result, the chest expands, the face redness, purples, intense sweating. Now the only way in which the paralytic effect of the weight and the suffocation which comes from it can be alleviated

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is by pushing up with the feet to release the pressure on the arms, and to release consequently the pressure on the diaphragm so that you can breathe. But you see, when you push down with your feet, you push against the spike, which in all of its searing ugliness has been driven through your ankles.

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Now it was important for me to read that. Because see, I've always wondered why it was that Jesus, in all of those hours on the cross, when he never for one moment lapsed into unconsciousness, that Jesus in all that time only said seven things,

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and all seven of those things could be repeated by any of us in less than thirty seconds. After reading what this French doctor said, I understand why that is now. He couldn't get the breath to speak. He couldn't draw into himself that which was necessary to utter even words.

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And yet, in the midst of a hell like that, the first words he utters, in unbelievable, unimaginable pain, the first words he utters are these. Please turn your cassette to the other side. Father, forgive them.

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For they don't know what they're doing. You know, I'm convinced that forgiveness will be the language of heaven. That when we get there, we will be greeted by those who speak the tongue of forgiveness. That every anthem sung by angels or cherubim and seraphim will be sung in forgiveness.

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That those who meet us as we cross the river will speak to us only in that language. But interestingly enough, forgiveness is not taught in heaven. It's learned on earth. And it seems to me it's best learned at the foot of the cross. The greatest Christians of the centuries have known this.

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Francis of Assisi wrote his canticle to the sun when he was a very young man. But just before his death, he added one two-line couplet, which went like this. "Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for love's sake." I think St. Francis found that wherever Christians lie.

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At the cross, where he's been forgiven. So what I'm saying to you is, when your friendship falters, go to the cross. Take your friend by the hand if he will come. And both of you, go to the cross.

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And ponder him there. I think it'll change you. I think it'll help you forgive. For that's how it is with God's love.

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Once you've experienced it. You spread his love to everyone. You've got to pass it on. Oh, if we could love our friends like that here.

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People would say of us what they said of saints centuries ago. "Behold how these Christians love one another." May God bless you and your friendships. Let us pray.

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When we survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died, our greatest gain we count but loss, and poor contempt on all our pride.

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For the whole realm of nature, my, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Oh, Jesus friend, let us be like thee in our friendships. And the Lord bless you and keep you.

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The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you, and give to you and to all those whom you love, and to all those whom nobody loves, his peace.