How To Choose the Right Friends

Friendship is good, Ec 4:9-10

Choose carefully:

• Your future is no greater than your friends
• You are known by your friends (if they are trouble, guilt by association)

Pr 13:20  He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.

II Pe 2:7b Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

Be Friendly:

Pr 18:24 A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

Five Traits The Right Friend Does Not Have:

Is Not Comfortable With Evil:

Pr 4:14-15 Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men.  Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.

Pr 24:1 Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them.

Ep 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. – true friend never says, “nothing is wrong with that”.

Is Not Worldly:

James 4:4  Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a  friend of the world is the enemy of God.

Ep 5:11 Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (why make friends with God’s enemies?)

Does Not Have An Anger Problem:

Pr 22:24-25 Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go:  Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.

Is Not Riotous (Glutton, Vile):

Pr 28:7B he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father.

Is Not A Gossip:

Proverbs 16:28  A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.

Proverbs 17:9 He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.

Seven Traits the Right Friend Does Have:

Saved:

2Co 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

Fears the Lord:

Ep 5:11 I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.

Wise:

Pr 13:20 He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.

Loves You No Matter What:

Pr 17:17 A friend loveth at all times (even when the friend fails).

Honest About Your Sin:

Pr 27:5-6 Open rebuke is better than secret love.  Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. – true friends do not encourage you to rebel or murmur or gossip and they let you know when you are doing something wrong.

Gives You Good Counsel:

Pr 27:9 Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel.

Improves Your Walk:

Pr 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Heb 10:24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: