Sermon Tone Analysis

| I’m Tired of My Friends |

| *______________________**Or; You’ve Got a Friend*----

 *Someone has coined an interesting new word* and I thought I’d share it with you; I think it was first used on a situation comedy on television, though I’m not sure; but now it’s become something of a buzzword in our culture.

It’s the term /frienemies/.

A /frienemy/ is a combination friend-enemy.

You can’t tell if this person is your friend or your enemy.

This is the kind of character who at least pretends to be your friend, but very often he or she causes more trouble than they’re worth.

Well, that’s the kind of friends that Job had, and that’s our study for today.

We’re in a series of sermons from the Old Testament book of Job, and if you’ve read very much in this book then you know that the largest section of Job, from Job 4 to Job 37 is devoted to a series of rollicking conversations Job had with his “frienemies” regarding all his troubles.

This is a very interesting book in the Bible, because from time to time we all find ourselves in conversations in which we need to be able to dispense comfort and strength like the Lord Jesus would if He were in our place; and the book of Job teaches us how to really help those who are suffering.

Someone recently wrote a book recently entitled, /In Every Pew Sits a Broken Heart.

/Every person we know and every friend we have will someday need encouragement from us.

Every time I stand to preach, I’m facing an undetermined number of hurting people.

At various points in life, we, too, need comfort and encouragement from others.

We’re to be comforters and encouragers—that’s an exhortation the Bible repeats many times.

But how do we learn to do it?

How do we learn to comfort and help others?

Well, think of the book of Job as a training manual in which we can learn the great secrets of being an encourager.

We’re going to cover a vast portion of the book of Job today, and I want to give you three /be’s/ which I think come right out of this extended text.

*Be Present *First, /Be Present.

/This is one of the things Job’s friends did right.

Look with me at Job 2:11-13: /When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Sophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.

Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights.

No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was./

This is one of the finest examples of friendship in the Bible.

These three men were busy men, leaders of their day.

But they dropped everything and traveled to Job’s side, and they were distraught when they saw him, and their hearts were troubled and burdened, and they sat down with him and mourned with him and wept with him and threw dirt up into the air and they were just there to be with their friend.

The most important thing you can do for those who are suffering is to be there, to go and sit with them, to hug them, to love them, to sympathize with them.

I had a young man tell me this week, “When I’m down I just need to hang out with my buddies.”

That feeling goes all the way back to the book of Job; and it was even true of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On the night He was betrayed, Jesus wanted to be with His friends.

“With desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,” He told them (Luke 22:15, KJV).

I think we’re doing so much better at that here at TDF in our LifeGroups.

In times of crisis or need, we just drop everything to be there, to sit with people, to hug them, to weep with them and cry with them.

I remember when a young man in our church suddenly died, and the line at the funeral home stretched out for what seemed like a mile.

The mother later told me, “I received strength with every hug.”

I remember when a young lady in our church was killed in a car wreck, and the lobby of the hospital was packed at midnight with TDF members.

I remember how this church turned itself inside out to help a family whose members had been murdered.

People say to me all the time, “My LifeGroup rallied around.

My LifeGroup came through.

My LifeGroup stood in the gap.”

I can give lots of examples over the years, and it’s like the old hymn that says:   Blest be the tie that bindsOur hearts in Christian love;The fellowship of kindred mindsIs like to that above.

This week I read the testimony of a woman who has written a book about her battle with breast cancer/./

She said that her friends and fellow Christians were a big part of her beating the disease.

She had friends who secretly delivered brownies to the mailbox, took her on a shopping trip for a much-needed wig, and dropped by just to iron clothes and change bed sheets.

She wrote, “Being a ‘safe person’ for a ‘hurting person’ is an art.

It’s easy to toss out glib phrases such as ‘I know how you feel’ or ‘Everything will be okay,’ but to really walk with someone the entire way along a tough road is not for the weak-hearted.”

(Tammi Reed Ledbetter, “Despite Breast Cancer, I Was Not Alone,” in Baptist Press, October 22, 2007.)

The Bible says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

*Be Positive*The second thing we can learn is to be positive.

Now, let me tell you what I /don’t/ mean by that.

I don’t mean that we should be glib or flippant and I don’t even mean light-hearted.

I don’t mean that we should spout off all kinds of clichés.

I also don’t mean that we should never confront sin or admonish a brother or sister in a loving and gentle way when necessary to do so.

But what I do mean is that we are commanded by God to build each other up.

And that’s where Job’s friends failed at their task.

They were tear-downers instead of build-upers.

Let me show you how this works out in the text.

After Job’s friends had sat with him for a week without any of them saying very much, finally Job opened his mouth and cursed the day when he was born.

That’s the chapter we looked at last week—Job 3.

He said, in effect, “I wish I had never been born; I wish I had died at birth; I wish I were dead right now.”

So in chapter 4, his friends started talking to him, and right off the bat they turned critical.

Look at Job 4:1ff: /Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:  “If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?

But who can keep from speaking?

Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hands.

Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees.

But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed.

Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?

Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?

Where were the upright ever destroyed?

As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.

At the breath of God they are destroyed; at the blast of His anger they perish./

(Job 4:1-9) In other words, he is saying, “Job, I love you; but you’re just reaping what you sowed.

You have surely been unethical or unrighteous in some area of your life, and this is what God does to people like you.

Eliphaz continues along those lines in chapters 4 and 5, and Job replies in chapter 6, and he’s none to happy with his friends.

Look at verses 24:  /Teach me, and I will be quiet; show me where I have been wrong….

// /Job continues speaking throughout chapters 6 and 7, and then in chapter 8 Bildad has a go at him.

I think Bildad was especially harsh and judgmental.

Look at how bluntly he speaks in verses 4ff:  /When your children sinned against Him, He (God) gave them over to the penalty of their sins…  \// /In other words, he said, “Job, you’ve got to face the facts.

Your kids were rebellious brats and God wiped them out.”

Now, how you do think that made Job feel?

After Bildad’s speech, Job replied.

Look at chapter 10:2ff:  /I will say to God:  Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges You have against me.

/In other words, “I’m not saying I’m perfect, but this doesn’t make any sense to me.

What have I done that was so bad?

What has my family done that deserves this?”/ /In chapter 11, Zophar speaks, and he doesn’t mince words either.

Look at verse 4:  /You say to God, “My beliefs are flawless and I am pure in Your sight.”

Oh, how I wish God would speak, that He would open His lips against you and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides.

Know this:  God has even forgotten some of your sin./

Then in chapter 12, Job fires back.

Look at chapter 13, verses 4ff:  /You, however, smear me with lies; you are worthless physicians, all of you!

If only you would be altogether silent!

For you, that would be wisdom.//

/In chapter 15, Eliphaz speaks again:  /Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied, “Would a wise man answer with empty notions or fill his belly with the hot east wind?”   /In other words, Job, you’re full of hot air.

You’re full of empty ideas.

/Would he argue with useless words or with speeches that have no value?

But you even undermine piety and hinder devotion to God.

Your sin prompts your mouth; you adopt the tongue of the crafty.

Your own mouth condemns you, not mine; your own lips testify against you.