Sermon Tone Analysis

Series Thesis Statement

This morning we come to the last Sunday in our series Everyone Needs a Friend.

And we have said that the modern view of friendship falls so short of what Jesus had in mind for us when it comes to friendships.

I Want You to Be One —JUST AS

Jesus prayed in to his Father,

JUST AS

The key two words in that verse are JUST AS.

The key two words in that verse are JUST AS.

So Jesus’ prayer for us is not that we tolerate each other, not that we have weak friendships, not that we have surface friendships, not that we keep to ourselves, not that we use each other when we need something, not that we leave each other, but Jesus said I want you to be one with each other with the same intensity, with the same intimacy, with the same bond of fellowship and love, that I, Jesus, have with my Father.

Not Idealistic

want them, us to be one just as you and I are one.

So when we have said in this series that one of the glorious graces of the church is that we get to have a dream team of friends, we are not being idealistic or overstating what is possible when it comes to friendships, we are barely scraping the surface of the intensity of friendship that Jesus prayed for us to have.

Does that make sense?

In other words, the standard of friendship that Jesus prayed for was that we would be one with each other JUST AS he and his heavenly father are one.

So when we set the standard of acquiring a dream team of friends, it may sound impossible, you may only have one friend, or maybe you have a bunch of bad friends, or maybe YOU are a bad friend, so a dream team seems impossible, but it isn’t because Jesus prayed for even more than that for us.

Different Kinds of Friends

So we have seen in this series that there are certain kinds of friends we need in our lives, and there are specific ways that we can be a friend to others.

So we have said that:

Everyone Needs a Barnabas: an encourager.

Someone who constantly speaks grace into your life.

A person who continually sees the best in you and tells you and others about those awesome traits in your life.

Some who believes in you when others don’t and perhaps even when others shouldn’t.

Who’s your Barnabas?

Everyone Needs a Paul in the sense that Everyone Needs a Mentor.

Paul was a mentor to many different people, but we see his mentoring documented in the letters he wrote to Timothy, who was a younger man in the ministry.

Everyone Needs someone who is pouring into their lives.

Someone who is saying yes to the next generation.

A Mentor is someone who understands that the measure of a man’s life is not how much he accumulates but how much he gives away.

Who’s your Paul?

Everyone Needs a Mentoree: or Everyone needs a Timothy they are mentoring.

Even if your life has been a train wreck, you still have something to offer those coming up behind you.

If you have been divorced and been gripped by the grace of Jesus, you aren’t the worst person to give marriage advice, you may actually be the BEST person to pour into a younger couple just starting out.

If you have struggled with lust or I should say are struggling with lust, you may be the BEST person to help another who is struggling in this area because you share how God rescued you.

Who’s your Timothy?

Everyone Needs a Nathan.

Nathan was the prophet who confronted King David after King David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, got her pregnant, and attempted to cover it up by having her husband, Uriah, who had been one of David’s most faithful mighty men, killed in battle.

Nathans are those people who can confront us on anything at any time.

They can also edit us and help us perfect our callings by speaking hard truths to us.

Who’s your Nathan?

And there are some odd friends we need:

Everyone Needs a Zaccheus.

Zaccheus was the little man who was a chief tax collector.

He was hated by the people, an outcast, arguably a crook, someone who was outside the fellowship of believers, someone who bore a scarlet letter sin.

You know those sins?

The sins that every one sees so people judge those sins, while remaining comfortable committing their own more private sins.

Everyone needs a reject like Zaccheus to remind us that we too were rejects before Christ saved us.

Everyone Needs an Anna.

Anna was the prophetess Luke tells us about in his Gospel.

She was a widow, she loved being in the Temple as Luke tells us she was there day and night.

She was quietly waiting for the Messiah and she was blessed by seeing Jesus as a baby.

She spoke about Jesus, she spoke about redemption.

So we saw that everyone needs those older wise, quiet women of God in our lives.

Those older women who love Jesus, who really get Nothing But Jesus because they have lived it and they have seen how nothing else matters.

I can’t tell you how important older godly women have been in my own ministry.

Everyone Needs a Jethro.

Jethro was Moses’ father in law who saw the way Moses was leading and he said, Moses, I need to organize you.

I need to help you be more efficient.

But mostly I need to help you focus on the big stuff and not the small stuff.

It is so easy as a leader to get focussed on the minutia, to get distracted from your main calling.

Jethros help us stay focussed on the big stuff by speaking into our lives.

Not Moralism: Only One Hero in Scripture

But one thing we have said again and again and again is that if all we say in the sermons is to be a confronter like Nathan, or be an encourager like Barnabas, or be kind like Anna…we have totally missed the point.

Because these are all types of Christ.

The only way that we should be like them or anyone is when they are like Jesus.

Because so much of the preaching and teaching in churches today is to point to these characters in Scripture and make them out to be heroes, but the reality is that there is only hero in Scripture and his name is Jesus.

The characters in Scripture aren’t heroes, they are broken, weary, sinful people like you and me.

God uses broken and weary people because broken and weary people are all that there are.

The only hero in Scripture is the one who...

That is why I am so excited about today’s friend, the last friend we are studying, Jonathan.

I am excited about him because of Jesus and we will see what I mean as we go.

Everyone Needs a Jonathan.

Everyone Needs a Jonathan.

Jonathan’s Story Not Like Movies

Jonathan was the son of King Saul.

He was the heir to the throne of Israel.

He was a mighty warrior.

He was also the best friend of David.

So Jonathan is David’s best friend, and David was the one who became king after Saul.

So you would think that this would make for a great storyline in a movie…you would think that the story would go that David and Jonathan grow up together and are best friends.

Jonathan expects to someday be king, but David eventually turns on his friend and leads a rebellion against him and seizes the throne.

That would make more sense.

But that is not what happened.

David’s Story

David had already been anointed king secretly by the prophet Samuel.

King Saul did what was displeasing to God.

King Saul felt threatened by David, so he set out to kill him.

He chased him down.

You would think that Jonathan would see the handwriting on the wall and join his father’s efforts to eliminate David so Jonathan could be king.

The custom was that a new king would have the old king’s relatives killed when he takes the throne.

Jonathan would have every reason to help his dad eliminate David…no one would have blamed him, and in fact I bet many, if not all, around him were pressuring him to join his father’s efforts against David.

But Jonathan was a true friend to David.

Jonathan said to David, I’m not leaving you.

I don’t care what happens.

I’m staying.

I have your back, I have your front, I have both sides.

And this friendship cost Jonathan something.

Listen to what his father said to Jonathan after Jonathan made sure that David didn’t walk into a trap that Saul had set for David.

I Samuel

This was a costly friendship.

Jonathan was a true friend.