Thank You For Being A Friend Claire

Eulogy Scripture

Proverbs 18:24 ESV

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24 NIV

24 One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24 MSG

24 Friends come and friends go, but a true friend sticks by you like family.

Introduction- Thank You For Being A Friend

Illustration: Golden Girls Theme Song

Thank you for being a friend

Traveled down a road and back again

Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant

And if you threw a party

Invited everyone you knew

Well, you would see the biggest gift would be from me

And the card attached would say

Thank you for being a friend

These are the words of the theme song for the sitcom The Golden Girls which aired on NBC from 1985 to 1992.

The importance of friends

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 ESV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Whodini in 1984

Friends How many of us have them? Friends Ones we can depend on Friends How many of us have them? Friends Before we go any further, let's be Friends

Is a word we use everyday

These would also be the words we could use describe and speak of and to Claire “Sister” Holmes on this occasion when we have come to remember her life…

Transition To Body- Friendship Is Important To God

Friends Talk To One Another

Exodus 33:11 ESV

11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

A Friend Loves At All Times

Proverbs 17:17 ESV

17 A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

Friends Speak The Truth In Love

Proverbs 27:6 ESV

6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Friends Stand By One Another

Proverbs 27:10 ESV

10 Do not forsake your friend and your father’s friend, and do not go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity. Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away.

Friends Believe In One Another

James 2:23 ESV

23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.

Body- Thank You For Being A Friend Sister Claire

That’’s why God under the leading of the Holy Spirit directed me to Proverbs 18:24

Proverbs 18:24 ESV

24 A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Companionship and Friendship Are Not the Same

Psychiatrist Dr. Hemant Mittal says this about the difference between friendship and companionship

1. Friendship is Being there for each other, even in the most inconvenient and embarrassing situations. Companionship is being with each other, but being Independent of negative outcomes.

4. Friendship is making sure you stop your friends from committing errors. Companionship is warning them, but letting them decide on their own.

7. Friendship is sacrificing time to deal with their emotional ups and downs even if not asked for. Companionship is helping them only if they ask.

9. Friendship is having a lot of expectations. Companionship is leaving aside a lot of expectations.

Illustrate: Claire “Sister” Holmes True Friendship

There Are Friends Who Pretend To Be Friends

Companions- friend, companion, associate, i.e., a person which one associates with and for whom there is affection and personal regard

Ruin- will be broken in pieces

Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament) 5336 II. מֵרֵעַ

evil-doer, i.e., one who acts morally corrupt according to a standard or guide

Jeremiah 38:22 ESV

22 Behold, all the women left in the house of the king of Judah were being led out to the officials of the king of Babylon and were saying, “ ‘Your trusted friends have deceived you and prevailed against you; now that your feet are sunk in the mud, they turn away from you.’

Illustration: Claire “Sister” Holmes Sincerity

True Friends Provide Continuing Relationship (Like Family)

Friend- love, i.e., have an affection based on a close relationship, sometimes in comparison to other persons with a lesser relationship

Sticks Closer- be united, joined, i.e., be in a close association, implying a normal continuing relationship

Brother- blood relative, i.e., a person of the same close clan family, such as an uncle or aunt, or offspring of same

Thank you for being a friend Sister Claire…

Transition To Close- Thank You For Being A Friend Jesus

John 15:12–17 ESV

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

Close- Greater Love Of Jesus Christ Who Identifies His Followers As Friends

1

What a friend we have in Jesus

All our sins and griefs to bear

What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!

O what peace we often forfeit

O what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer

Have we trials and temptations?

Is there trouble anywhere?

We should never be discouraged

Take it to the Lord in prayer

Can we find a friend so faithful

Who will all our sorrows share?

Jesus knows our every weakness

Take it to the Lord in prayer

Consider Jesus’ Faithfulness

Hebrews 3:1–6 ESV

1 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. 3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. 4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6 but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

Our Living Hope Through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

1 Peter 1:3–6 ESV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,

If We Have Died With Him…

2 Timothy 2:11–13 ESV

11 The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.