In his sermon 'The Pastor and His Friends,' Brian Borgman discusses the critical role of deep, heart-to-heart friendships for pastors, drawing parallels to the biblical friendship between David and Jonathan. He highlights the challenges pastors face in cultivating such relationships due to the isolating nature of ministry and the risks involved when trust is breached. Borgman illustrates that, despite these challenges, genuine friendships are essential for personal and spiritual growth, providing emotional support and preventing isolation and apostasy. He emphasizes the need for friendships rooted in mutual encouragement in God, marked by covenantal loyalty, and providing emotional ballast. Borgman argues that such friendships not only enrich personal lives but also enhance professional effectiveness, as supportive relationships contribute to overall well-being and resilience in ministry.

It's great to be with you and it is good to be wearing my own clothes. I really feel grateful to God that my flights were uneventful yesterday. And since I'm short on time, I'll do away with all of the nice things I could say about Scott. But if you take your Bibles and turn to 1 Samuel, I want us to read a few passages. They're familiar passages to us.

Familiar passages to us. 1 Samuel chapter 18, we'll read verses 1 through 4. Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself. And Saul took him that day and did not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself.

And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David with his armor, including his sword and his bow and his belt. Just one chapter over, chapter 19, verse one. Now, Saul told Jonathan, his son, and all his servants to put David to death. But Jonathan, Saul's son, greatly delighted in David. Chapter 20 verse 17, And Jonathan made David vow again because of his love for him because he loved him as he loved his own life.

In one last passage, chapter 23, verse 15, Now David became aware that Saul had come out to seek his life while David was in the wilderness of Zeth at Horesh. And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David at Horesh and encouraged him in God. Thus he said to him, Do not be afraid, because the hand of Saul my father shall not find you, and you will be king over Israel, and I'll be next to you. And Saul my father knows that also. So the two of them made a covenant before the Lord, and David stayed at her rash while Jonathan went to his house." Let's quickly ask the Lord for help.

Our Father, we do pray that you would be glorified in this time and throughout this day and throughout the conference, Father, even as our Lord Jesus taught us to pray, hallowed be thy name, we pray that you would glorify your name. We pray now that you would feed us, challenge us, and encourage us that you might strengthen our hand for the work in Jesus name. Amen. Over the years, I've gone to Zambia several times to teach at Lusaka Ministerial Academy and the Copperbelt Ministerial College. And one time I was having, this is several years ago now, and one time I was having lunch with Conrad and Beiwei, and then Ronald Califungwa, who has pastored Lusaka Baptist Church there for many years.

And I asked them, I said, you guys, the Reformed Baptist Churches in Zambia, you guys get along? There is a unity in purpose, you work together? I said, in America, Reformed Baptists can't even eat lunch together without throwing food at each other. And Ronald looked up at me and he said, the reason that we get along so well and the reason that we have such unity is because we're friends. We're really friends.

In fact, we love each other and everybody is an equal. Oh sure, in the world, Conrad is the Spurgeon of Africa, but here in Zambia, he's just Conrad. We are friends who love each other. And so today, what I want to talk to you about is the pastor and his friends. Pastors need friends, and I'm talking about the kind of friends that go beyond just the fraternity of pastors.

We'll meet people, we'll have contact with people that we see from year to year at this conference or in other places and they're genuine friends but the kind of friendship that I'm talking about is a heart-to-heart friendship. The kind of friendship that you could call a bosom friendship. Something that is reflected in the friendship of David and Jonathan, where their hearts were knit together. Now, right away I realized that friendship creates a challenge for us. Kevin DeYoung noted, friendship is the most important and yet least talked about relationship in the church.

And so, of course, we know that when sin entered into the world, it not only separated us from God, but it separated us from one another. Sin creates a culture of alienation from one another. Sin fractures relationships. And you see it from Adam and Eve to Cain and Abel down throughout history. And so as fallen people, a lot of times we don't necessarily want deep friendships.

Paul Tripp makes this observation. He says, at one level, we want friendship. At another level, we don't want friendship. In creation, we were made to live in community, but because of the fall, we tend to run from the very relationships that we need. So Scott just told us pastors are odd ducks.

I think that was the term that you used. Pastors are not only odd ducks but they are oftentimes lonely ducks. All right. Loneliness is, of course, the fruit of the fall. Loneliness is heartbreaking.

Loneliness in ministry is common. Even if you have good elders around you, you can still end up being incredibly lonely. And so the challenge of friendship for pastors is a real challenge. But I would say even more broadly speaking, true friendship among men ends up being relatively rare. There of course are different categories of friendship and we realize all of that.

But I'm talking about the kind of friendship that is willing to be transparent and vulnerable with someone, that's rare. It goes against the grain of what our culture thinks is true manhood or what is manly. And so our Friendships are often sort of substitute friendships and we end up suffering for it. Marshall Siegel writes for Desiring God says, the absence of good friends slowly starves everything else we do. A husband without good friends will be a worse husband.

A mother without good friends will be a worse husband. A mother without good friends will be a worse mother. A pastor, a doctor, a teacher, and an engineer will all be the less effective at their callings without the support and camaraderie of friends. Some of you are sitting there thinking, well, I know why true friendship is rare among pastors because true friendship in ministry can be dangerous. A friend of mine who planted and pastored a church in California for many years.

He and his wife went through a season of difficulty. He opened up. He, as the Puritans might put it, he unboosomed himself to his fellow elder who he took to be a close friend. And then several years later, when this man started to encounter difficulties in the ministry, instead of that fellow elder who had walked with him in that trial, sticking with him, use that information against him years later to get him out of the pastorate. And so we realize that things like that happen.

Those things have happened to you, they've happened to me, And oftentimes the idea of a close friendship in ministry is risky. It's risky to have close friends. And so when I was in seminary, our Greek teacher who had pastored for several years, he used to tell us, don't be friends with anybody in the congregation. It's safer that way. Well, it is safer, but it's not better.

It's better to actually take the risks. So what are the elements of those of a true biblical friendship? I got to do this quickly. It's the kind of friendship that you could describe in several ways. And So just drawing primarily from those passages in 1 Samuel, biblical friendship, true heart-to-heart friendship is having your soul knit together with somebody else, 1 Samuel 18.1.

It's also covenantal. In that, I mean, and notice twice, it is said that David and Jonathan made a covenant with each other. True friendship, heart-to-heart friendship is marked by chesed. It's marked by loyal love. The friendship is held together, as it were, in covenantal bonds where you love that other person as you love yourself.

The love is a steadfast love. It's a covenant love. It is the kind of love that's described for us in Proverbs 17, 9. A friend loves at all times. And so that love is faithful and it is the love of one who sticks closer than a brother, Proverbs 18, 24.

But another element is that true biblical friendship is a friendship in which you mutually encourage each other in God. The true heart-to-heart friendship never loses sight of the fact that God himself is at the very center of that relationship. And so you can have friends, but in times of crisis, an ordinary friend, let's say, may just come alongside, pat you on the back and tell you it's gonna be okay. The heart-to-heart friend is the guy that's gonna be there with you in the trenches who points you back to Christ, and who is gonna make sure that your eyes are being fixed on Christ and you're going to do the same for him. One last element of true biblical friendship is that it could be designated as being of kindred spirit.

That's the way the New American Standard does, translates Philippians 2.20. The ESV is absolutely blah. Paul's talking about Timothy and he says, for I have no one like him. And that is just a yonder of a translation. New American Standard says, for I have no one else of kindred spirit.

What's interesting is that the word is rare and it means of same soul or of same mind. In fact, Stephen Runge, the Greek scholar, he says you could actually translate the word as soulmate. It's actually a compound word, soulmate, the idea of one who shares everything in life together. And so why do you need a friend like that? Why do you need a friendship like that?

I wouldn't take a poll right now, but I wonder how many of us actually have somebody who fits those descriptions in our life. Well, I'm gonna argue that you need a friend like that for three specific reasons. And the first is this, that kind of heart-to-heart friendship keeps you from the danger of isolation. So Proverbs 18.1 says, He who separates himself seeks his own desire. He quarrels against all sound wisdom.

And so the Proverb says that we separate ourselves as we actually do what? Seek our own desire. The Holman Christian Standard Bible says, one who isolates himself pursues selfish desires. So there's something that's unmistakably self-centered about separating ourselves from others in the body. And we won't go into all the different reasons why we might do that, but I will point out one thing that should be pretty obvious to us, and that is it is incredibly easy for men who are in ministry, who pour themselves into the lives of people day after day.

Brothers, if you are a pastor, you are in not only the truth business, the Bible business, the theology business, but you're also in the people business. And our lives are spent chasing down wandering sheep and dealing with wounded sheep and pouring ourselves into the lives of other people and oftentimes those who pour themselves out into the lives of others want to just be left alone. Do I know that in a room like this, at a church and family life conference, that you're all too spiritual to ever think like that? But I'm not. In 2013 and then in 2018, I had two friends and they would have been my closest friends.

Both of them betrayed me by living double lives. And what that did was it made friendships of over 20 years for on each occasion. Both just seemed like a lie. And so the first man who actually worked at our church, who I supposedly, you know, he always would tell people that Brian was the one that brought me to Christ and all of this, and yet it would be that man who I shared some of the most intimate prayer times, some of the closest kinds of conversations that two Christian men can have, and it would be that man who would steal a quarter million dollars from our church, become a serial adulterer, and a drunkard. One night, just trying to wrap my head around what had happened, I looked at my wife and I said, you know, friendship is overrated.

She looked at me, and she said, don't let yourself go there. Don't start thinking that. Because if you do, not only will you never again have a close friend, you'll never again be a close friend. In 2018, the same thing happened, except that it wasn't stealing. It was a matter of a man who had lived in a sexually immoral way for years while serving as an elder of our church.

If I had a problem, I'd go talk to him. If Ariel and I couldn't see eye to eye on something, we would go and talk to him and his wife. And he was like a grandfather to my children. And just as the other guy had been an uncle, this guy was a grandpa to my kids. And again, once it came out, the life that he had been living, I looked at Ariel and in another moment of self-pity I said it again, friendship is overrated.

And so brothers, the danger of wanting to isolate ourselves is in fact a real danger, but make no mistake about it, the one who isolates himself, even in a sense of self-protection, is doing so out of bad motives. And what can a good heart-to-heart friend do for you? They can actually keep you from going down that road of isolation. If I go down that road of isolation, all sound wisdom is gone. No sound judgment is left.

As it were, the very rails, the very guard rails are now taken down. One pastor, Garrett Kell, writing about fallen leaders says, sin thrives in isolation. Satan lives in the darkness and longs to keep us there. Lies live best in the darkness. That's why when God calls us to himself, he calls us into the church, and I would say also calls us into heart-to-heart friendships.

And so a heart-to-heart friend can actually keep you from going down the road of isolation and ultimately ruining your ministry. Number two, a good heart to heart friend can keep us from apostasy. One of my favorite texts in the book of Hebrews is Hebrews chapter 3 verses 12 and 13. The writer says, see to it brethren that that no one falls away from the living God, that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, but encourage one another day after day as long as it is still called today so that you will not be hardened by the deceitful." And so the writer tells us that there is a danger in falling away from the living God. There is a danger of having our hearts hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

And I want to just say that if you think, well, I've been a pastor for X number of years, that's not me. You're self-deceived. You are absolutely self-deceived. If you see men who have served in the ministry, some of these men have been good friends of mine, and you watch them spin out of control and destroy their ministries and themselves. Brothers, the warnings in the book of Hebrews are warnings not just to the people out there in the pew, they're warnings to us.

And so there is this exhortation, the heart, an evil heart of unbelief is in fact a very real danger. If you have the first edition of Paul Tripp's book, Dangerous Calling, just look on the back cover of those who endorse that book. And you will see that three out of five are no longer in ministry. One has so-called deconstructed his faith and no longer professes to be a Christian. The other two have been removed from ministry for immoral behavior.

And they're writing a book on the dangers of pastoral ministry. At times you want to say, did you read the book? And so here's the reality is that an evil heart of unbelief is a very real danger. That evil heart of unbelief can fall away from the living God, a defection from the faith. And so regardless of how you understand the warning passages in the book of Hebrews, one thing that I want to tell you is at least take them as real warnings.

The antidote against an unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God is encourage one another day after day. You know that word, barakaleo, is a very broad word. It can mean comfort. It can mean consolation. It can mean encouragement.

It can mean exhortation. And the kind of heart-to-heart friendship is the kind of friendship where That person's not afraid to talk to you about your sin. In Hebrews, the idea is the encouragement and exhortation to faith, to good works, to perseverance. We see this over and over and over again and there is this there is a sense of echo of Proverbs 27. Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, whereas deceitful, of course, are the kisses of an enemy. A few years ago, I had a, We used to do this young marriage. So if you'd been married for two years or less, we'd get together every quarter or so, and we'd go and meet at somebody's house, have a meal together. And then we had three different couples that would then share, of course, all of their nuggets of wisdom regarding marriage. We had one couple that had been married for almost 50 years, and then Ariel and I were there, and at that time we'd probably been married for about 30 years.

And then another couple that had been married for less time, but very godly, mature people. So we did them on Saturdays. And I hate doing stuff on Saturdays. Can I get an amen, right? I hate doing stuff on Saturdays.

Saturday is not a good day for me to go out. And so it's about four o'clock and Ariel walks in and she says, hey, we got to get ready to go to the newly married group. And well, I was doing something really important. I was drinking a diet Pepsi and watching Bonanza. And so 10 minutes later, she comes in, she says, hey, you gotta get up and get dressed.

We gotta leave, we gotta leave by 4.30. And so she went off and she's getting you know She's a little energizer bunny doing all this stuff and she comes back in about 425 and she says, look, what are you doing? And I said, I want to see how the episode ends. And she says, really? You don't know that little Joe is not going to die?

Well, yeah, I know that. I've seen this episode many times. I don't want to go. She says, well, it's too bad. You're going to go.

So we got in the car. We got there. And God never blessed me with a poker face. And we got there. And the night turned out great and ended up being great conversation.

But the next week, one of the men, one of the guys that had been married for less time than us, but a very godly man, called me and he said, Hey, can I come talk to you? I said, sure. And I thought to myself, well, John must be coming to soak up some more wisdom from me because why else would he want to talk to me? And he comes into my office, he sits down and he says, Brian, you know what, I love you. I said, I love you too, John.

He says, you know, I respect you. I said, I know. He says, but I have to tell you, your behavior Saturday night was sinful. Saturday night was sinful. It was obvious you did not want to be there.

And that you sinned against every couple that was there. You should have had an eagerness to be with them, and it was obvious you would have rather stayed home. And so of course I responded and I said, well what do you know, You've never been to seminary. It's not what I said. I said, brother, you are right.

Thank you for loving me enough to tell me the truth." Pastors are not only often insecure, as Scott mentioned earlier, we're often really thin-skinned. Brothers, part and parcel of the Christian life and living life together is being able to exhort each other and point out sin in each other's lives. And the sheep have every right to do that for us when they love us. And so the whole idea of a good heart-to-heart friend keeps me from apostasy. They call me out when I need to be called out.

They point out sinful behavior when it needs to be pointed out. And so there is this sense in which that friendship is what God is using to keep me from being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Maurice Roberts wrote one time, our best friends are those whose company makes us afraid to sin. So brothers, heart-to-heart friendship, friendship where we really do love the other person. It's not a friendship in which we love each other as righteous, perfect saints, but where we love each other as unrighteous sinners in need of the grace and mercy of God continually.

And so a close bosom friend will keep me from the dangers of isolation, but a close bosom friend will also be a means of grace to help me persevere and not fall away from the faith. And then finally, they provide emotional ballast for our souls. A good heart-to-heart friend provides emotional ballast for our souls. So when I talk about ballast, you remember that the water barrels would be put in the hold of a ship to enhance stability and buoyancy, and so a good heart-to-heart friend is someone that gives us that kind of emotional ballast. They are the person that knows what it is to weep when you weep and to rejoice when you rejoice.

They are that person who understands that if you're suffering, they're suffering. Hugh Black in his book on friendship says, to have a heart that we can trust and into which we can pour our griefs, our doubts, and our fears is already to take the edge from the grief and the sting from doubt and the shade from fear. Joy also demands that its joy should be shared. A simple, generous friendship will thus add to the joy and divide the sorrow." Stop and think about that terrible episode in 1st Samuel where Saul had actually just had just ruthlessly killed the priests at Naab. And he is relentlessly pursuing David in the wilderness and Saul has repented twice after trying to take his life and here he is at it again.

David and Jonathan end up making a covenant with each other and then once Saul is on the hunt for David, it's actually quite humorous in the text, Saul and his men are searching all over for David. David's dearest friend, Jonathan, knows exactly where to go. And Jonathan goes and finds David. Was it a risk for Jonathan to go to David at that point? It was a huge risk, but he needed to be present.

He didn't send a messenger boy, he himself went. Dr. Beeke in his little book on friendship says never underestimate the power of personal presence. What did Jonathan do when he found David? It says he encouraged him in God.

David was weary, David was afraid. Safe to say David was absolutely spent at the end of his rope. And what does God do for his weary, beleaguered servant and son? God sends him a friend, Literally one who strengthened his hand in God. In a real sense, what happens is David's emotional ballast was restored by the words of a heart-to-heart friend who stuck to him closer than a brother, the affectional power of spiritual friendship is absolutely priceless.

Let me just give one more example and then I think I'm done Or David will tell me that I'm done. Paul in Titus. Paul is by himself. He goes into Macedonia. He's ministering the word and he's anxiously waiting to hear from Titus.

And Paul describes this experience in 2 Corinthians 7, 5 and 6. And he says, we were afflicted on every side. Our flesh had no rest. He was describing the restlessness and the struggles and the conflicts, conflicts without and conflicts within, pressures, oppositions, fear. When you read 2 Corinthians 7, you realize that Paul himself was emotionally distraught and discouraged, and yes, the one who had Philippians 4 13 written on his Nike sandals was in fact depressed, downcast, and disheartened.

And so how does how does God actually encourage his despondent apostle? Well of course he could have given him some sort of super revelation from heaven. He could have appeared to him in a dream or a vision. How did God actually encourage him? He didn't do it through some supernatural revelation or something.

He did it through a friend. He did it through sending a flesh and blood human being who was right there at the right time. The great apostle ends up having his emotional ballast restored by a friend. Esther Edwards Burr, Jonathan Edwards' oldest daughter, wrote to a friend and she said, nothing is more refreshing to the soul, accept communion with God himself in the company and society of a dear friend. A heart-to-heart friend is one that seeks you out and you seek them out.

It's one who encourages you in God and speaks the truth even in the midst of turmoil. I will tell you that one, just simply one, Christ-centered, heart-to-heart friend is worth 20 certified ACBC counselors. And I love ACBC, all right, that's not, but what I'm saying is that God will use a heart-to-heart friend to restore emotional ballast to you. The kind of friendship that I'm describing is described by Bunyan at the end of Book Two of Pilgrim's Progress. Unfortunately, that's not as well known as Book One.

I would argue it's every bit as good, if not even a little better. You have Great Heart. He, of course, has been the guide for this motley crew on their way to the celestial city, and he has been a faithful—I think Great Heart is a picture of a faithful courageous pastor leading his people into the promised land and he meets this valiant for truth and there's this wonderful scene towards the end of the book and Valiant for Truth has just come from a battle and Great Heart says let me see that sword and Valiant for Truth says it's a Jerusalem blade and it's awesome. This is the updated version. He says it cuts through flesh and bone and soul and spirit.

Well, Great Heart being a man of war himself says, you fought on for a great while. I am amazed that you're not weary and valiant for truth. I love this picture. He says, I fought till my sword did cleave to my hand, and when they were joined together as if the sword grew out of my arm, and when the blood ran through my fingers, then I fought with the most courage. Great Heart looks at him and says, I like you.

He says you've done well having resisted unto blood, striving against sin, you shall abide with us, come in and go out with us, for we're all companions." And so they take valiant for truth, they wash up his wounds and gave him what they had to refresh him and They went on together. And then Bunyan says this, now as they went on, because Mr. Great Heart was delighted in him, for he loved one greatly that he found to be a man of his hands. And because there was with his company them that were feeble and weak." Bunyan's point is actually quite interesting. Here's Great Heart, who is a faithful guide to the feeble and the weak.

And those people Great Heart really genuinely loves and probably could even count as friends. But oh, when he met Mr. Valiant for truth, it was as if he was saying, now there's a man after my heart. There's a man that I understand. There's a man who will understand me.

There's a man who knows what it is to have your hand actually cleaving to the sword as the blood makes makes the hand and the sword into one. There's one who knows what it is to fight in the trenches and that is the kind of guy that I need to be my friend. Brothers, we need good friends. We need men who will lock arms with us in the battle. We need men who will love us as they love themselves and vice versa.

We need men who will love us and keep us persevering and keep us running. We need good friends who will be there in our darkest hour. Is it risky to develop these kinds of friendships? The answer is you bet it is. But don't let the risk prevent you from having what God desires for you and will use mightily in your life.

And so may God give us one or two or three bosom friends that will help us fight the good fight and persevere to the end. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for our Lord Jesus Christ, who is in fact the ultimate friend who sticks closer than a brother. And Father, we pray that that for the men who are here who really lack those kinds of friendships, we pray that in the sweetness of your providence you would bring a valiant for truth or a great heart into their lives to help them, Lord, to fight the good fight. And Father, we pray that not only would we look for such a friend, we pray that by your grace we would be such a friend.

And so we pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.