Dock
Resource Kit
Sunday sermon, 28 June 2026
Summary
This week Michael talked to us about friendship, drawing on verses from Proverbs 27 he argued that friendship is formational, practical and joyful. That open rebuke and honest correction are not failures of love but essential expressions of it. Friendship is practical, striving to care for those who are geographically close in practical ways that lead to multigenerational friendship. Finally, he showed that friendship is joyful: if perfume and incense bring joy, how much more does a friend's heartfelt counsel from the very soul. All three of these images are most fully realised in Jesus; the friend in whose wounds we trust, who came to us in disaster, and who brings the deepest joy.
Key Points & Takeways
Open rebuke is an act of love, not unkindness - Proverbs 27:5 says "better is open rebuke than hidden love," and verse 6 adds that "wounds from a friend can be trusted." Proverbs 9 had already established that a wise person loves a rebuke because it adds to their learning; the repeated emphasis shows that scripture expects correction to be a normal feature of healthy friendship.
Formation is painful for both sides - The Hebrew words in verses 5–6 mean genuine correction and literal wounds, not comfortable feedback. Michael's anecdote of walking 13 miles home at midnight rather than calling for help, and receiving open rebuke from his mentor, parents and fellow interns, illustrated both the cost of receiving correction and the love that motivates it.
Truth is essential to love - Ephesians 4:15 links speaking the truth in love directly to growth into maturity in Christ. We see it in Jesus' ministry: he rebukes the disciples for their lack of faith after calming the storm, not despite his love for them, but because of it.
Loving your neighbour requires rebuking them - When Jesus quotes the command to "love your neighbour as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18), the verse immediately before it reads: "Rebuke your neighbour frankly so you will not share in their guilt" (Leviticus 19:17). The foundation of loving your neighbour is dealing with them truthfully.
Formation is active, not automatic - The iron-sharpens-iron image of Proverbs 27:17 is deliberately costly: sharpening removes material from both pieces. Formation in friendship doesn't happen by proximity alone, just by being near your friends. It requires an active, intentional choice to love, challenge and engage, and it changes both parties in the process.
Correction must be truthful, timely, and life-giving - Michael cross-referenced Brigid's sermon from the previous week: the same marks of wise speech: truthful, timely, and life-giving, apply directly to how we correct and rebuke those we love. Formational friendship is not a licence for harsh or careless words.
Friendship is practical: invest in those nearby - Proverbs 27:10 says "do not go to your relative's house when disaster strikes — better a neighbour nearby than a relative far away." Michael and Natasha, having neither Scottish nor American family close by, spoke personally about how the church community and nearby friends have stepped in practically when life is hard. The proverb is a call to prioritise and cultivate friendships with those who are geographically close.
Practical friendship becomes multigenerational - The phrase "friend of your family" (or "your father's friend" in the ESV and NKJV) in Proverbs 27:10 points to friendships so faithful that they outlast a single generation and become bonds between families over years and decades. Faithfulness to nearby friends in disaster and joy is how ordinary friendships become something lasting.
Wilberforce and Thornton: what practical friendship looks like in practice - When Wilberforce's first abolition bill was defeated in 1789, his friend Henry Thornton did not write a commiserating letter. He bought a house on Clapham Common and gave Wilberforce a key; the community they gathered became the Clapham Sect, and they journeyed together for decades, through defeat, illness and political setbacks, until the slave trade was abolished in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833. It is almost a precise embodiment of Proverbs 27:10.
The joy of a friend's counsel surpasses perfume - Proverbs 27:9 uses the Hebrew wisdom form of qal wahomer (moving from the lighter to the weightier): if perfume and incense bring joy, how much more does the heartfelt counsel of a friend? Michael drew the analogy to the week's heatwave: if the momentary joy of a cold shower on a 37-degree day brings relief, how much more so the counsel of a friend.
Counsel from the soul, not advice tossed in passing - Comparing translations of verse 9; NIV's "heartfelt advice," ESV's "earnest counsel," NKJV's "hearty counsel," and the Legacy Standard Bible's "counsel from the soul," Michael drew out the Hebrew word nephesh: the whole person, the soul. Genuine friendship does not offer casual, surface-level opinions. It costs us something; it gives our whole selves. That kind of counsel brings a joy of ordering and settling what was disordered.
All three images are most fully seen in Jesus - Jesus is the friend in whose wounds we trust for our eternal salvation; he rebukes and challenges us through his Spirit and word because he loves us too much to leave us comfortable. He is the neighbour who did not write a letter from heaven but came, "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." And knowing him is a deeper joy than any perfume or cold shower. Growth in friendship is not a project we run ourselves; it flows from the heart being changed by Jesus. that homes, friendships and churches are marked by truth, grace and life.
Dock Discussion Questions
Michael observed that as we get older, fewer people correct us: "only the people I've given specific permission to correct me." Is there someone in your life who has that kind of permission? If not, what would it take to invite that kind of friendship, and what makes it hard?
Proverbs 27:5–6 says "better is open rebuke than hidden love," love that withholds correction is described as hidden, even as a form of cowardice. Can you think of a time when someone's honest rebuke benefited you, or when you held back from correcting someone and later wished you hadn't?
Michael pointed out that when Jesus quotes "love your neighbour as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18), the verse immediately before it commands us to "rebuke your neighbour frankly so you will not share in their guilt" (Leviticus 19:17). How does that change the way you think about what it means to love the people around you?
Thornton didn't write a letter to Wilberforce, he bought a house and gave him a key. Who are the neighbours nearby in your own life, people you could invest in more intentionally, especially through the hard seasons? Is there something practical you could do for someone this week that is more than just words?
Michael described the counsel called for in Proverbs 27:9 as coming from the nephesh, the whole person, something that costs us. When did you last give or receive that kind of deep, engaged counsel? As we pursue the church's vision of growth in depth, discipleship and impact, what is one step you could take to move a friendship toward that kind of sharpening?
Long-form, edited transcript
Growing in Wisdom.
Wisdom in Friendship.
Proverbs 27:5-6, 9-10, 17
Introduction
We've arrived at the fourth part of our Proverbs series on growing in wisdom, and I'm really excited to keep unpacking it. Ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature, like that found in the book of Proverbs, is profoundly practical, not high-flown, detached philosophy, but wisdom for the day-to-day practicalities of life. I've been deeply challenged and genuinely blessed by what we've been looking at.
A quick recap of where we've been. In week one, we looked at the foundations: the fear of the Lord is the foundation of knowledge, characterised by a right relationship with God; trust and submission. That's the bedrock of everything else. In week two, we talked about the invitation we each face: the world offers two paths, the path of wisdom and the path of foolishness, and that's not a one-time choice but a day-by-day, moment-by-moment decision. And last week, Brigid unpacked the first of our practical subjects: growing in wisdom in our speech. The call to speak words that are true, timely and life-giving. If you haven't listened to it yet, I really encourage you to go back and catch it on the podcast or online. It was powerful, and it challenged me deeply this week: there were moments when I spoke well by God's grace, and moments I absolutely failed to. But God really spoke to me through it.
This week we're talking about growth in friendship. We're going to look at three proverbs from Proverbs chapter 27: verses 5 and 6, verse 9, verse 10, and verse 17. I'm going to read them in the order they appear in the Bible, and then we'll jump around a little as we unpack them together.
Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.
Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice.
Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family, and do not go to your relative's house when disaster strikes you. Better a neighbour nearby than a relative far away.
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
— Proverbs 27:5–6, 9–10, 17
Three things I want to hold together as we look at these verses:
friendship is formational,
friendship is practical,
and friendship is joyful.
Friendship Is Formational
A few weeks ago, we unpacked Proverbs chapter 9, which contains a striking challenge: a foolish person hates to be corrected and throws insults at the person who tries to correct them, but a wise person loves a rebuke because it makes them more wise and adds to their learning. We talked about how the way we respond to correction is a great indicator of whether we're walking the path of wisdom or the path of foolishness.
The fact that these proverbs return to the theme of rebuking and correcting one another, that it appears prominently in Proverbs 9 and again here, tells us something important: scripture is not shy about this. It expects correction to be a normal part of friendship, not an aberration or an awkward exception. Friendship is the right context for open correction.
I don't know about you, but as I've gotten older, I feel like people correct me less. The only people who still do are the ones I've specifically given permission to. I'm not sure if it's because I've genuinely gotten wiser and there's less to correct, or whether it's just that when you reach a certain age, people are a bit hesitant to take on that role.
I can remember, when I was younger, being corrected quite a lot. I'm originally from rural Scotland, and around twenty years ago I did a year of voluntary ministry, a kind of internship. Because it was unpaid, I didn't have much money, so I used to take the cheap bus to a nearby town where I could use a free gym. But here's what you have to understand about rural Scotland: the buses are not like London buses. There's one bus an hour.
So one evening, I went to the gym, finished my workout, and went to wait for the bus home. It never came. And this was the last bus of the evening. I waited another hour. Still nothing. So at around midnight, I made what seemed to me at the time like a perfectly logical decision: I would walk the thirteen miles home.
Four and a half hours later, I arrived home though, on reflection, I could probably have walked it a bit faster. The next morning I was in the office, barely awake, and I was expecting a sympathetic reception. My mentor, the youth pastor, was going to understand. He'd let me go home and sleep. That was not what happened. He gave me some fairly direct open rebuke. My parents did the same, pointing out that mobile phones existed and I owned one. And pretty much every other person on the programme there were four of us gave me equally stark feedback about the wisdom of walking alone along a main A-road between two towns in the middle of the night.
I would have loved them to wave it off, or even be mildly disinterested. But that wouldn't have communicated love. It wouldn't have helped me grow. And thanks to them, I've made better decisions since then. Open rebuke, at the right time and from the right people, forms us.
Open Rebuke and Formation Are Painful But Profitable
Verse six uses the word "wounds" — and the Hebrew really does mean bruises, injuries, wounds. These can be painful even when they come from the best of motives. Correction costs the person being corrected, but it also costs the person doing the correcting. You know that feeling; the one in your chest, or in the pit of your stomach, when you have to go to someone you care about and challenge them on something. Being frank and open costs you something.
But the reality is that formation in this way is part of love. Frankness, open truthfulness, is not the whole of love, but it is an essential part of it. It is possible to speak truth that is not in love. But it is not possible to love without truth.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ.
— Ephesians 4:15
Speaking truth in love leads to growth. And we see this across Jesus' ministry. After he calms the storm, he challenges the disciples for their lack of faith. He challenges them when they fail to heal the boy in Matthew 17:17. He rebukes Peter's earthly focus in Matthew 16:23. These are not departures from his love, they are expressions of it.
Leviticus 19:17 - The Foundation of Loving Your Neighbour
Here's something I find really striking. Jesus is once asked what the most important commandment is, and he gives the answer we know well: love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself. The second part of that is a quotation — from Leviticus 19:18.
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.
— Leviticus 19:18
But do you know what the verse immediately before that one says? Leviticus 19:17:
Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbour frankly so you will not share in their guilt.
— Leviticus 19:17
The foundation of loving your neighbour is dealing with them truthfully. Hidden love, love that keeps silent while a friend continues in a destructive pattern, is described here not merely as passivity but as sharing in their guilt. This is a powerful challenge: friendship that is truly formational is not optional; it is part of what it means to love one another.
Iron Sharpens Iron - Formation Is Active, Not Automatic
Proverbs 27:17 gives us one of the most well-known images in the whole book: "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." When you sharpen iron, both pieces are reduced in the process. Material is removed from both. The iron is honed and refined, made smaller, in a sense, but in being shaped it becomes something more than it was before, more suited for the task it's needed for.
That's a picture of what formational friendship looks like. It costs both people. It's active. It doesn't just happen by being physically near someone. Proximity alone doesn't produce formation, formation comes through an intentional choice to love, challenge, and engage. Growing in wisdom is communal, but it doesn't happen automatically. It happens in community when we actively choose to work at it.
One note before we move on: if you haven't listened to Brigid's sermon from last week, I really do encourage you to go back and listen. She spoke about words that are truthful, timely, and life-giving. That applies directly here. As we look to correct our friends, to rebuke in love, those corrections must be truthful, spoken at the right time, and given with life in mind.
Friendship Is Practical
Proverbs 27:10 says:
"Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family, and do not go to your relative's house when disaster strikes you. Better a neighbour nearby than a relative far away."
There is so much practicality here. The proverb praises the cultivation of deep and loyal friendships, and specifically encourages us to befriend those who are physically nearby. There is wisdom in investing in friendships with people who are geographically close to you. You may or may not know that I'm originally from Scotland, and my wife Natasha is from America. We don't have a lot of family nearby in London. And what I can say with real gratitude is that this church family, and the friends we have chosen to invest in here, have been practically and profoundly present in our lives in ways that have meant everything.
The second part of the proverb is equally practical: when disaster strikes, go to your neighbour nearby. This is why we build friendships, not just for the good seasons, but so that when the hard things come, there is someone close who can be present with you. That kind of faithfulness is the point.
Multigenerational Friendship
Notice the phrase "a friend of your family," or, in the ESV and NKJV, "your father's friend." The point is that these are multigenerational friendships. Practical friendships with those nearby, sustained through disaster and joy, through thick and thin, across many years, become something more than just our friendships. They become family friendships; bonds between families, across generations. That is the kind of depth the proverb is pointing us toward.
Wilberforce and Thornton: Friendship in Practice
When William Wilberforce's first abolition bill was defeated in Parliament in 1789, he was, understandably, devastated. His friend Henry Thornton did not sit across town and write him a commiserating letter. He bought a house on Clapham Common, Broomwood House, and in 1792 he invited Wilberforce to move in. Over the following years they gathered like-minded friends who shared their faith and their passion for ending the slave trade. This community became known as the Clapham Sect.
They deliberately settled near one another. They shared the same goals, the same desires, the same commitment. It took until 1807 for the slave trade to be abolished, and until 1833 for slavery itself to end. Decades of defeat, illness, political setbacks, and they journeyed through all of it together, geographically close, practically present, and their friendship became generational.
It is almost a precise embodiment of Proverbs 27:10: a neighbour nearby, chosen over those who are distant, tested across disaster, faithful for a lifetime.
Thornton didn't write to Wilberforce across town to say he was thinking of him. He bought a house and gave him a key. Friendship is practical.
Friendship Is Joyful
Proverbs 27:9 says: "Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice." I want to do just a little bit of text criticism here, because this verse is doing something very interesting.
On the surface, those two lines seem almost unrelated; "perfume's nice, and so are friends." But this proverb is using a common form of Hebrew wisdom literature called ‘qal wahomer,’ light to heavy, or lesser to greater. The idea is: if something is true of the smaller thing, how much more is it true of the larger thing?
In ancient Israel and across the ancient Near East, perfumes and incense were not luxuries reserved for special occasions. They were used for religious and ceremonial purposes, for attracting others, for personal care and hygiene. They were so woven into the fabric of daily life that not wearing perfume was understood as a sign of mourning, the only reason you wouldn't wear it was because you were grieving the loss of someone you loved. Perfume brought joy to people every single day.
I know it's a slightly controversial thing to say as a British person, but it's been rather warm this week. In fact, it was fifty years ago today, the 28th of June, that the long-standing record for the highest June temperature was set: 35.6 degrees Celsius in Southampton in 1976. This week we broke it. 36.1 on Wednesday, 36.7 on Thursday, 37.3 on Friday. Has anyone else had this experience: you come home from a long, hot day, you have a cold shower, and for about three seconds you feel genuinely clean and wonderful — and then you step out and you're already hot again because your house is a furnace? In that three-second window, there is real joy. We get a small glimpse of what the Israelites experienced every time they put on their perfumes.
If perfume and incense bring that kind of joy and well-being, how much more so does the counsel of a friend? That is the argument the proverb is making.
Counsel from the Soul
But what kind of counsel is it that we're called to give? Let's look at a few translations of verse 9.
The NIV, which we read this morning, says "heartfelt advice." The ESV says "earnest counsel." The NKJV says "hearty counsel" — I actually quite like that; a hearty meal, hearty counsel. But perhaps my favourite, and the most faithful to the original Hebrew, is the Legacy Standard Bible: "counsel from the soul."
Counsel from the soul. The Hebrew word is nephesh: the soul, the whole person. This is not casual advice tossed to a friend in passing. It's not a quick text, or a brief reply. It could be a long voice note, perhaps, but the point is not the medium; it's the depth. Just as formation is costly, just as the practicality of giving someone a key costs something, the counsel we give our friends should be costly too. It should give something of ourselves. It takes time. It takes thought. It takes care.
The Joy of Costly Counsel
I should probably not make this a joke because God is here, but normally I finish a sermon weeks ahead of time. Weeks. It almost never happens that I'm still working on a sermon the night before. Almost never. But last night I was still at my desk, and everything I wanted to say was there, the scriptures, most of the stories, but I couldn't quite land the three points. I couldn't find the exact words.
My wife Natasha came in from watching something, and I asked her if she could help. I saw the look cross her face, that brief, honest moment of "do I want to engage in this costly conversation right now?" To her credit, she did. So let's hear it for Natasha.
I knew what was on my heart to say, and I knew all the scriptures. But I couldn't quite get those words in the right order. So she helped me talk it out and there's a joy in that. In having someone sit with you while something is disordered and help you bring it into shape. You know that feeling when you just need to sit with a friend and really hash something out? When they help you process until it all falls into place? That's what Proverbs 27:9 is pointing to. Not the joy of flattery or easy agreement, but the joy of being truly known by someone who gives themselves, their nephesh, to help you find your way.
Jesus, the True Friend
All three of these images of friendship are most fully seen in Jesus.
Jesus is the friend in whose wounds we can trust. Not just the friend who takes an emotional risk in correcting us, his are literal wounds, and we trust in them for our eternal salvation. He died for us. And through his Spirit and his teaching, he continues to rebuke us and challenge us and bring us forward, because he loves us too much to leave us comfortable.
Jesus is the friend who sticks closer than a brother. He is the neighbour nearby. He didn't stay at a distance and send a nicely worded letter. He came to us. "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." He came to us in the disaster of sin. He is the neighbour nearby.
And Jesus is the joy. The pleasantness of a friend's heartfelt counsel is better than any perfume or incense, better than anything we could buy or pour over ourselves. Knowing Jesus and being known by him is a deeper sense of well-being than any comfort in a heatwave. He is the one who brings us deep joy, who brings order into our chaos, who speaks truth from his very nephesh into ours.
God doesn't just command you and me to be good friends. He has been one to us first, in Jesus. And he goes on being that good friend to us in the Holy Spirit. Growth in friendship is not a project we run ourselves, a to-do list we walk away with, ticked off by Sunday evening. It flows out of our hearts being changed by Jesus.
Closing Application
Here's the question this week leaves us with: Who is sharpening you? And who are you sharpening?
Maybe that's a Dock group. We'd love for you to be doing that kind of intentional formation together. Maybe it's a prayer triplet. Maybe it's a message to a friend who lives far away, and I don't want to dismiss those distant friendships, they are real and beautiful. But there's also a gentle challenge here: is distant friendship all you have? Who is your neighbour nearby? Who needs you to be their neighbour nearby? Who needs you to be willing to do the hard work of showing up, practically and honestly, through the long seasons?
Maybe there's someone in your life longing for the counsel of your soul, for you to sit with them and help them find their way through something disordered. Maybe there's someone waiting to sharpen you, if you'll give them permission.
Phil, our rector, has called us this year to a year of growth: depth in discipleship, impact, and number. None of that happens in isolation. Wisdom is relational. You cannot grow alone, and neither can the people around you. A church full of formational, practical, joyful friendships is a church that makes disciples, because that is exactly what discipleship has always looked like: iron sharpening iron, one ordinary person at a time.
So this week, let someone sharpen you. And look for someone to sharpen too.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank you for Jesus
The ultimate example of all we have talked about. He is the Word, he is truth and wisdom, he brings life and light.
But we know it's not enough simply to know that and to assent to it. We want to respond in faith. We long to see this church alive, free and on fire with love for you.
We long for friendships which are formational and practical and joyful, speaking words that are true and timely and bring life.
Let us not go from this place without resolving to move forward with our friendships, deeper into what you have for us.
In your strength, following your example,
in Jesus' name.
Amen.