Youth MSG: Friendship

Intro

Attention (Personal Story)

I would love to build some trust with you guys before I begin speaking to you guys. So I would love to confide with you guys a time when I wasn’t a very good friend. In my freshmen and sophomore years of college I had a best friend named Jake. Jake is an awesome dude, he’s super loyal, extremely funny, and he talks way more than you’ll ever ask him to. Kind of like me. So you can imagine Jake is a great friend to have.

However, as we made our way through young adult-hood I started to get busy. I started picking up work, school had me busy, and at some point I started dating this random girl who was just way too cool to not give all my time to. But unfortunately I stopped prioritizing spending time with Jake. What made it worse is that Jake always had two full-time jobs and he still made time to play games with me or watch TV together. In a way my and Jakes friendship became out of balance where Jake was doing most of the giving and I was doing most of the taking.

As I reflected on this story this last week it made me realize that there are so many times where we often don’t know how to love our friends well. So how should we?

We often don’t know how to love our friends well. So how should we?(Need)

John 13, Share the Scripture Story

Am I giving or taking with my friendships?

Explain (John 13:14)

“And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet.”

In this verse Jesus is explaining to the disciples that they are meant to treat each other as Jesus is treating them. Jesus is treating his disciples with service. Even more Jesus is serving his disciples as their teacher and leader, because they are those who he is closest to and and in the deepest friendship with.

What’s even more crazy is that Jesus is serving the disciples while knowing that some of them will wrong him. One of his disciples named Judas will leave right after the meal they are eating right now, to turn Jesus into the religious authorities to have him killed. And Peter, another disciple, will deny ever knowing Jesus or having any relationship with him out of fear of being killed alongside Jesus. Clearly Jesus is giving to his friends even when they don’t deserve it, knowing that this service is what produces the deepest relationships and friendships.

Illustrate

And just as Jesus explains that we must give to our friendships. Most of us know that when we take too much from our friendships without investing time physically or emotionally, this causes problems. Because I didn’t prioritize time with Jake, that damaged our friendship. Jake later told me that he felt disregarded as a friend because I did not invest the way he did. This put him through a season of loneliness and it did the same for me without knowing.

Argue (Proverbs 18:24)

“There are ‘friends’ who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.”

Fortunately Jake and I sorted things out so that we never destroyed each other. But the Proverb is telling us that people who only take and do not stick by their friends destroy relationships. And likewise, a friend who serves even when it’s difficult or when their friend does not deserve it like Jesus did, that creates a friendship just as deep as a family.

Apply

Asking ourselves how we approach the friendships closest to us is the first step to finding out if you’re someone who takes or gives in relationship. It may also help ask yourself what others do for you. Do a lot of your friendships only take from you?

What does it look like to give to my friendships?

Explain (John 13: 34-35)

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

At the end of Jesus’ meal with his disciples he says these words to make it clear to them that loving each other is so important that it is how other people will see that they follow Jesus at all.

If we listen to what Jesus has to say we understand that no relationship that we have where we don’t love the other person will be healthy. It may even be destroyed if it lacks love, as Proverbs said. Jesus is giving us an entirely new way to gauge whether or not our relationships are healthy. By love.

Illustrate

A silly illustration that came to my mind this last week came from while I was thinking about the differences between my friends and my family. Proverbs tells us that our closest friends should become like family.

What came to mind is how my two older brothers do as soon as they see me during every family gathering. First, for context, I am the youngest of three brothers. The middle brother is 9 years older than me, and the oldest is 12 years older than me. Both are 6 foot or taller, weighing somewhere between 180-200 lbs. While I’m 5’7, 130 lbs. You guys probably see where I’m going here. Their tradition is to jump me at every family gathering. Usually one sits on me and the other jabs his fingers into my sides. When their nice they only tickle me for 10 minutes.

Now obviously it’s all in good fun, I hope, but the point I’m making is that whether we really acknowledge it or not, we are way more forgiving, and patient, with our family than we are with our friends assuming we don’t already treat our friends as our family. Most of the time, no matter how much my brothers jab, or sit on me, or do something even more damaging to our relationship they will still be my brothers in my eyes. I don’t wonder whether or not I’m going to be there for them if they need me. But with friends, when they do us wrong, hurt our feelings, or maybe communicate poorly, we are much quicker to scrap the relationship and move on. Jesus views this as backwards.

And I want to be clear Jesus does not ask us to stay in broken friendships, where there is harm. He wants us to understand that we have the power to change and heal friendships, so that they are like family relationships, through and by the way that he loves.

Argue (Proverbs 17:17)

“A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need.”

Like our other Proverbs passage, we are looking at two different levels of friendship here. A normal good, kinda healthy, friend is always loyal. That’s great we don’t care about that, what we care about is having a brother or sister to help in our time of need. True friendship, and true love, is service and loyalty when it is difficult to serve and difficult to be loyal.

Apply

So then, if we desire to have friendships that is deep on the level of family. We should ask ourselves, “Do I do all the taking in my friendships?” And next, “What can I do to serve in my relationships?” I’m going to have you guys discuss these together.