True Friends Series

Introduction

What would you do to help a friend in need? There are moments in my life when I was helped by my friends and I had an opportunity to be a help to a friend in need and there are moments in my life when a friend has been there for me. There’s always helping with things like moving, talking about life over a cup of coffee, lending a few dollars to help them when they are down, or watching a child for them. Then there are the times that are significant, like standing by their side while they say goodbye to a loved one or supporting them during the low points in life.

1 Corinthians 15:33 warns us “That bad company corrupts the best of morals.” The opposite is also true…“Keep company with good people and good people you will imitate.”

Real friends are hard to come by…they’re rare because there is a connection in our souls that cannot be manufactured or formulated. It takes time and it requires as many troubles as it does celebrations.

Real friends love us…not “because of” but in “spite of” our weaknesses and flaws. They don’t overlook them, but they look past them. Real friends don’t run from our burdens…They help carry them.

The man in our text has such friends. His weakness is he’s paralyzed. He’s confined to a mat every day. He cannot walk. He has to beg for help just to meet his daily needs. He’s broken and the religious leaders of his day would have said, “Either he or his parents must have been terrible sinners for this to happen. He’s being punished by God.” That’s the way many looked at sickness and disease during Jesus’ time.

If anyone needed a friend, it was this man. It was these friends who did everything they could to get him to the only hope he had and that was a healing touch by Jesus. Little did they know they did much more than that. You never know what kind of impact you are going to have in someone’s life by being a friend and when you do it in the name of Jesus that impact is so much more.

The church is an identity, not a location. You are either a missionary or a part of the mission field. You are a missionary to a world in need of Jesus’ friends. There is a realization in you that this world needs acts of kindness because this world needs more Jesus. What usually keeps us from doing more is the influence of people around us who say you can’t make a difference.

As Jesus’ popularity grew, it became increasingly difficult to get to Jesus. Luke tells us that Jesus would “withdraw to desolate places to pray (Luke 5:16). No doubt the healing of a leper only magnified his popularity and the word got out what had happened. One day, as Jesus is teaching, the friends of this paralyzed man tenaciously work to give their friend hope.

1. The Men on a Mission

17 On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. 18 And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, 19 but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. Luke 5:17–19 ESV

There are a number of people of interest in this narrative. Each had a purpose. Each had a mission. The tension of the story isn’t the man being lowered through the roof, but Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law who had come from all over the region- not to be taught by Jesus, but to be a sort-of investigative committee. These are the critics and cynics who think they have all the answers and with Jesus, on the scene, they just knew there must be something wrong with him. It was their job to figure it out and get rid of this preacher. Pharisees, by the way, were in many respects faithful to the Scriptures, but they abandoned the heart of the Law for the Letter of the Law. For this Jesus was their greatest critic (See Matt 23:23; Matt 6:1-5; Luke 11:38-39).

Then there’s the crowd. A mix of people who are hungry for the message of truth from Jesus, a hope of a miracle, or just plain curious about what all the excitement was about over this man from Nazareth. Jesus, was, of course, the other presence who sat in the midst of this crowd preaching on the Kingdom of God. The atmosphere must’ve been electric as God’s truth moved through the ears of those listening and into their heart.