Winter Wisdom: The Benefits of Friendship by Matt Fuller

July 21, 2023

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but you will never be wise without good friends.” In this talk, Matt Fuller teaches on the benefits of friendship, the definition of a good friend, and how they help us to live a wise and godly life.

The Benefits of Friendship by Matt Fuller

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Transcript:

There was an ad put on TV in the UK a little while ago. It’s speaking about different people who had their images appear on screen as the narrator was talking about them and it went like this: “I am my mum, and my dad, and my sister. I am my best friend Mike I’ve known since school. I am all the girls I’ve ever kissed and the ones I will. I am the teacher who failed me, and I am the teacher who spurred me on. I am my bosses and every one of my friends. I am my mates and the drinks I share with them. I am the people who put me down and I am the people who pick me up.” Punch line: “I am who I am because of everyone I’m with.” It’s an interesting advert. There’s wisdom in that and when it comes up on screen, ‘So get your mobile phone with EE’ and you think, “What?” But it’s making the very true Biblical point: who we spend time with makes us who we are.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but you will never be wise without good friends. They will make or break you – the people that you spend time with. Friendship is a wonderful blessing from the Lord. Now just bear with me for two minutes. I’m going to bring out my Hobby Horse and ride him, my friend Hobby the Horse, just for a couple of minutes. My fear is, occasionally amongst 20 somethings in particular, that friendship gets devalued by romance. I love romance. My wife is not here so I can tell you I’m a deeply romantic man, without fear of contradiction. Romance is a wonderful thing, but you need friends and sometimes friendship is neglected and devalued or dropped when romance appears, and that is a wretched mistake and partly it’s just this Hollywoodisation of our lives and certain films are to blame.

I blame more than any other Jerry Maguire. You know Jerry McGuire (which I love as a film actually), it is a good film and I do watch films which don’t have Tom Cruise, because I realise this is the second one I’ve mentioned if you were here this afternoon in the seminar. There’s a climactic scene – he’s bungled it and he’s realised he’s in love with Renee Zellweger, so he goes to the house and bursts in and he’s got his grand speech prepared.

The music starts up. Do you not remember this? It’s Bruce Springsteen and it starts up and it’s all very gentle in the background. “She let you in her house,” and it’s going in the background and then the climax of the speech is, “You complete me,” and we all say, “Oh, yeah, that’s lovely”, and that is twaddle. No one person can complete you. No human can do that and if you have that view of marriage, if you take that view into marriage, “Now I’ve arrived, now I’m complete,” you’ll ruin your marriage because it’s placing too much of an expectation upon you and you’ll lose all your friends because you won’t value them. That is twaddle.

Now Hobby Horse rides off and we put him aside and I’ve got that off my chest and all is well. Friendships are so precious and there aren’t enormous amounts of differences between a great friendship and a marriage. There aren’t huge differences. What is the difference? I think it’s this: marriage is a public, exclusive, sexual covenant. A public, exclusive, sexual covenant. But everything else you have in a good marriage is there in a good friendship. Intimacy, emotional and physical, sometimes you just need a hug, support, somebody who’s your cheerleader, and someone who comes along and rebukes you gently and lovingly.

Many of the best things about marriage, we get in friendship. Often married couples will say, “She’s my best friend. He’s my best friend.” That’s good, as long as they’re not your only friend, then you’re in trouble. Just go away, Hobby Horse, go away. Please don’t make that mistake. Invest in your friends. It’s precious, very, very precious.

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