2 Tim 4:16-18 At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, in order that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the lion's mouth. The Lord will deliver me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. 
While this letter to Timothy is filled with much encouragement and direction in the Lord, as to the manner in which the church is to live unto God on this earth, there is, throughout the writing, a tinge of the suffering of the Apostle Paul. There is that sense that he has been fighting the good fight, but often alone, without support. In his lament, we can hear the yearning that God has placed within man for friendship, for fellowship, for companionship. 2 Tim 1:15 You are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. 2 Tim 4:10 for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. There is an echo from the Old Testament through to the New Testament of the need that we have to be and to know friendship.
I guess this has resonated with me since, not too long ago, I had someone mention that I was their best friend. Growing up, I had very few friends in my life because we moved so frequently. Throughout high school and college, due in large part to a fear of social commitment and shyness, I have no recollection of any friends. Therefore, to be called a best friend made an impression upon me in a fashion that caused me to seek the Lord as to what that means in Him. That is why this portion of the lament of the Apostle in these letters just seemed to cry forth unto my heart. What is it about our lives that desires friendship and utterly bemoans the lack thereof? 
In Job 16:20, we read the cry of Job. "My friends are my scoffers; My eye weeps to God. As well, in Job 19:17-19, "My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers. "Even young children despise me; I rise up and they speak against me. "All my associates abhor me, And those I love have turned against me. There is a deep sense of loss and death apart from the fellowship of loved ones. Even Job’s wife seems to have cast him apart and suggested to him that he should curse God and die. There is a horrible sense of loneliness and desperation in this heart of man.
Job is not the only one to write in such sadness. The Psalmist, in many places recounts the loss of friendship, as we read in such a passage as Ps 38:11 My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague; And my kinsmen stand afar off. And again in Ps 102:7, I lie awake, I have become like a lonely bird on a housetop. 
	The Prophet Micah faced such loneliness that he even found that his own family could not be trusted as friends. Mic 7:5+6 Do not trust in a neighbor; Do not have confidence in a friend. From her who lies in your bosom Guard your lips. For son treats father contemptuously, Daughter rises up against her mother, Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; A man's enemies are the men of his own household. 
And the ultimate cry of a heart that is deserted by friendship is shown by our Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, as He faced His crucifixion physically alone and deserted. Matt 26:55+56 At that time Jesus said to the multitudes, "Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me as against a robber? Every day I used to sit in the temple teaching and you did not seize Me. "But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets may be fulfilled." Then all the disciples left Him and fled. 
	Yet, Christ had already told his friends, his disciples of this faithlessness on their part. They would desert Him and leave Him without earthly friends in the harshest time of His earthly life, and yet He would not be left Alone. There was another Who would stand with Him throughout. John 16:32  "Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. 
It is this truth that needs to come to the forefront of our heart’s consideration, at this point. While we sense that deep lack of intimate friendship within the Apostle Paul, within Job, within the Psalmist, within Micah, and verbalized by Our Lord Jesus Christ, we must look beyond it to the Divine friendship of Our Heavenly Father. It has been in His heart from before creation. He has offered Himself freely, throughout the ages of time, and it is only in Him that we can find that unfailing, unhindered, permanent relationship of friendship. His very character is imbedded in the fact that He is the very person in Whom friendship has its source and its perfection.
	Throughout scripture, there are very few people with whom God can be said to have found a friend, with whom He could freely and fully commune. We read of God’s friend, Moses and God’s defense of his friend in Num 12:8. With him I speak mouth to mouth, Even openly, and not in dark sayings, And he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant, against Moses?" With Moses, there was no veil. God spoke directly with him and revealed Himself to Moses in a manner not seen by other eyes. Ex 33:11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent. God’s friendship was so strong that it carried very directly over to Joshua, as we read in Josh 1:5 No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.
	Abraham was the first of the very few to be called a direct friend of God. Moses, after all, was the recipient of the fact and benefit of Abraham’s friendship with God. 2 Chron 20:7 Didst Thou not, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before Thy people Israel, and give it to the descendants of Abraham Thy friend forever? And in James 2:23, we read, and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," and he was called the friend of God. There was a great commitment of friendship that was in God’s heart to Abraham and his descendants. It is the promise in which you and I are now included and finding fulfillment of blessing in Christ Jesus. It is the covenant that God chose to make with us, through His friendship with Abraham. 
Scripture is filled with the fullness of God’s friendship and covenant of faithfulness with Abraham’s descendents, as we read in the following passages: Deut 4:31 For the Lord your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. Deut 31:6 Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you." 
God’s friendship covers those who would otherwise be friendless in this world. As we find throughout scripture, God is the friend of those in need, of those oppressed, and of those in direst need of compassion. Unlike the friendship offered by this world, God offers Himself perfectly to the impoverished, the afflicted, and the alone.
Listen to the heart of God, as He expresses Himself, in His perfect relationship as a friend to those in need. Isa 41:17 "The afflicted and needy are seeking water, but there is none, And their tongue is parched with thirst; I, the Lord, will answer them Myself, As the God of Israel I will not forsake them. Isa 42:16 "And I will lead the blind by a way they do not know, In paths they do not know I will guide them. I will make darkness into light before them And rugged places into plains. These are the things I will do, And I will not leave them undone." 
Rather than looking for those who will be of benefit to Him, God is a friend to the afflicted and to the oppressed. Isa 44:21 "Remember these things, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant, O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me. Isa 46:4 Even to your old age, I shall be the same, And even to your graying years I shall bear you! I have done it, and I shall carry you; And I shall bear you, and I shall deliver you. Isa 49:13 Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people, And will have compassion on His afflicted. 
God seeks after those who are in deepest distress. He is a friend in Whom perfect compassion is His expressed heart of comfort. Isa 54:10. "For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, But My lovingkindness will not be removed from you, And My covenant of peace will not be shaken," Says the Lord who has compassion on you. Compassion defines the friendship that God offers us. It means sympathy for the suffering of others, often including the desire to help. In the case of God, He not only has the desire to help, but He is all help. In His perfect friendship of compassion, He meets our every need. 
Compassion also holds forth the promises of empathy, that fellow feeling that encourages and understands us as we go through the difficult times. He stands by us through it all, not with a gloating, but with a sincere heart of love to help us get through each trial and dilemma. His friendship is covered through with kindness, affection, and care. He is a friend in every form and fashion in Whom we find our strength, our wisdom, our courage, and our fortitude to go on, knowing He is with us through it all. 
	This is the reason that Christ could tell his disciples that they would desert Him, but never His Heavenly Father. He was not alone because He counted on the faithfulness of the One Who sent Him into this world to establish an eternal fellowship of perfect friendship and love through the sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son.
	That is why the Lord took upon Himself the course of action defined in John 13:1. Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. He loved them to the end, just as He loves us to the end. He does not turn away from us in our hour of need. He does not consider us less than worthy of the sacrifice of everything for our benefit and for our eternal life. He does not measure out a limited portion of mercy and grace and time and then withdraw an excess. He loves us to the utmost, to the very end. Every fiber of His Being is infused with that love to draw us near to His very heart. 
	That is why He could encourage His disciples and each of us with His promise in John 14:18. "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. He will not just leave us hanging in the winds of change and storm without His presence. He gives us His Holy Spirit to direct and to guide us into all Truth. He has given us His Holy Word to be the light to our path and to be the source of our wisdom and strength and comfort. He holds us close and He tells us that which we need to hear through the preaching and the teaching of His Word. 
Christ manifests Himself in our lives through all the great and the small ways in which He cares for us. We are not left alone and we certainly are not orphans. We are now made the very children of God, fellow heirs of righteousness and holiness in all His faithful grace and mercy.
	He has that heart which could only be expressed as recorded in John 15:15. "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. He calls us friends because He has shown us the Father, the friend of Moses and Abraham, Who is now our direct and personal friend. We are translated from a faithless relationship that seeks only after our self gratification into that fellowship which seeks only to serve to the glory of God. We are taught how to be a friend as we learn that skill and that reality from God, Himself. He has revealed Himself to us, in Jesus Christ, and as we respond, we get an increasing sense of the character and the true nature of friendship that can never be manifested except from the pure love of God’s heart.
	That is why these letters from the Apostle Paul, although tinged with regret at the loss of human friendship, nevertheless find him rejoicing in the provision of the Lord to stand by him and to strengthen him to face all the terrors of this age without fear. His friendship with Christ, his fellowship and relationship with the very Son of God, meant more than the loss of all those earthly associations. Their faithless disregard for the value of true and unhindered friendship only served to show forth the beauty and the perfection and the joy of the faultless friendship that Paul shared in Jesus Christ, his Savior, his Lord, his brother, his eternal companion and friend. So be it! 
At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, in order that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the lion's mouth. The Lord will deliver me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is Jude 20-25 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.