Heartfelt Sermon on Biblical Friendship

A commercial diver that performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs wrote a letter to his friend.

Hi Steve: Just another note from your bottom-dwelling best friend. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I

thought I would share my experience with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all.

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a pretty good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my buttocks started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my buttocks started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened.

The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, my buttocks was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into places it shouldn’t be. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically.

Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my bottom as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I was unable to go to have a bowel movement for two days because of the swelling. So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish stuck where the sun doesn’t shine.

A guy I used to work with told me that when he was in the Air Force, he would call home and tell his parents how bad it was. He said that his dad always gave him good advice. His dad would tell him, “Son as bad as it is, it will get worse.” Jeff didn’t like calling his dad. Mom was always more comforting.

Sometimes as parents, we try to be friends with our children. But there are some differences between what the world would consider a friend and true friendship in the bible. And a lot of times we can be confusing to our children by trying to be their “friend” instead of their parent.

Now I have come up with 3 biblical traits of a great friend and I challenge you to search the scriptures and find other traits. They are in there, but I just want to talk about 3 of them. So many times, in our lives when someone is going through a bad time, we tell them that it will be okay and don’t cry and it will be better tomorrow or God has a plan, trust Him.

I think about the story of little Bobby. He was about 6 years old and was outside playing in the front yard. His dad looked out and saw Bobby sitting with Mr. Jones, who just lost his wife of 45 years to cancer. His dad watched for a little while and he saw Bobby get up and Mr. Jones gave him a hug and Bobby came home. When Bobby got in the house, his dad asked him, “What did you say to Mr. Jones?” Bobby said, “Nothing, I saw that he was sad, and I helped him cry”

Which brings us to our first trait of a great friend.

1. Great friends are Extremely Compassionate

Job 2:11-13

Job didn’t need his friends to tell him that everything was going to be okay. He didn’t need them to tell him that God has a plan. What Job needed was someone to show compassion to him.

Being human, we are naturally fixers. We aren’t fixers because we are good at it, we are fixers because we don’t like things to be out of our control nor do we like to keep our mouths shut.

When Lazarus died, did Jesus know that Lazarus was going to die? Did Jesus know that He would raise Lazarus from the dead? Did Jesus tell Mary and Martha to stop crying that everything was going to be okay? What does it say in John 11:35?

John 11:35

Jesus wept because He was mad at death, which was brought on by sin, and He had compassion for Mary and Martha in their grief.

Compassion is a great trait of friendship, but we can’t confuse sympathy for apathy. This can be a problem with friendships and parenting alike. I don’t want you to be mad at me, so either I am not going to say anything about your bad behavior, or I am going to tell you that it’s okay and you will do better next time.

Sometimes

2. Great friends are Brutally Honest

David was king and he sinned by committing adultery with Bathsheba and then getting her husband killed to cover it up. But Nathan was not going to let David get away with it and he confronted King David, which could have cost him his life.

2 Samuel 12:1-13

It’s not okay to look the other way. Sometimes you have to tell it like it is.

I have a friend that held a leadership position in the church. I found out that this person was committing adultery, so I had to go to that person and tell them that what they were doing (had done) was a sin and that they would need to step down from that leadership position. I told them that I loved them and that I would always be there for them. I would help them through the process and help them work toward reconciliation, if they wanted me to do that.

Jesus was brutally honest with His disciples.

Matthew 17:17-20

In the NLT it says faithless and corrupt people. Now think about that Jesus is talking to His disciples and He tells them they are faithless and corrupt. Not understanding why that they could not drive out the demon they asked Jesus for clarification. Jesus said, “Because you have so little faith”.

Can you imagine? They probably felt embarrassed because of their inability to drive out the demon. Jesus doesn’t say, “If first you don’t succeed, try try again.” He lays it out there. It seems like we are afraid to speak the truth because it might hurt someone’s feelings.

Look at how Jesus talked to Peter.

Matthew 16:23

Get behind me Satan!!! It was just a few moments before that when Jesus was praising Peter for knowing that Jesus was the messiah and now “Get behind me Satan!!?” Talk about in your face.

Can you be bold like that? Can you if you need to be Brutally honest with someone? Another part of being a great friend and probably more important than the other 2.

3. Great friends are Completely Committed.

It has been said and you have probably even heard it, “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I know that I favor those that love me and demonstrate that to me. The kind of person that will put my needs ahead of theirs. Someone that will go the extra mile. I mean we all probably do that. Right? Let’s read our main text.

Mark 2:1-12

These 4 guys, against some very challenging circumstances, did what it took to get their friend in the presence of Jesus. How far did they carry this guy? I have helped people move and have had to carry furniture up/downstairs and it can be very exhausting. And then if I had to carry this furniture for a couple of blocks to load it on a truck. I don’t think so. These guys didn’t just carry his friend to the house. (which could have been miles) They also carried him up to the top of the house, dug a hole in the roof and lowered him down. Did they know that their efforts would be rewarded with the healing of their friend? Honestly, how could they? But they did it anyway.

Let me ask you, “Are you that kind of friend? Do you have these traits?” Do you demonstrate these traits with the people that you know? Do you demonstrate these traits with people that treat you the way that you want to be treated? Do you demonstrate these traits with people that don’t treat you like you think you deserve to be treated?

Luke 22:19-21

This was the last supper that Jesus would share with His disciples. Did he only share this meal and go through the agony of His crucifixion with just the disciples that wouldn’t betray or deny Him? No! He did not! Even though He knew that Judas would betray Him and Peter would deny Him and that every disciple would run off when the going got tough, Jesus still loved them with all His heart.

He still had that meal and communion with them…. all! He even washed their feet.

I ask you before, “Are you that kind of friend?” and I am going to take it to the next level…” Would you like to have a friend like that?” You can. In Revelation 3:20NLT

Please don’t let this opportunity get away from you.

How To: Be a Great Friend