Friendships pt. 3

Let me ask you this question … how do you know whether or not you are a good friend?

How do you know if you are a good friend?

Is there a report card that we can look at? Is it the same for every single one of us?

Tonight, I want us to look at what it takes to be an awesome friend. Here’s why this is important.

It’s something that we’ve been talking about for the past two weeks: BFFS can affect the quality and direction of your life.

We have been talking about the idea that our BFFs, our best friends, can have a drastic effect on our life. They have influence in our life, whether or not we recognize or admit it. All of our friendships shape us. And we see this in Proverbs.

(NIV)

“Walk with the wise and become wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.”

When I think of about an awesome friendship, I think about MY best friend.

My best friend is named Scott.

My best friend is named Scott.

[BEST FRIEND PIC]

Scott and I met in college, and to be honest, we couldn’t be more different. I’m an extrovert, he’s an introvert. He plays sports, and I’ve never played one in my life. He’s black, I’m white. He grew up in Oklahoma and his parents are divorced, I grew up in Texas and my parents are together.

We met each other in class and quickly became friends. We actually found some interests that we DID have in common. Here’s what made my friendship with Scott so awesome.

We pushed each other in the right direction. Scott was a guy who was by my side when I was making a bunch of dumb decisions. I was there for him and helped get him out of his comfort zone. We pushed each other in our schoolwork. We loved and accepted each other no matter what. Scott was patient with me when nobody else was. He was there for me during times of need, and he made me laugh.

To this day, Scott and I are still friends and still talk regularly. And as I was talking about Scott and my friendship, I’m sure that some of you here thought about your own BFF.

When you think about your friendships, what is it about them that makes them awesome?

When you think about your friendships, what is it about them that makes them awesome? Why are you STILL friends with that person? And ultimately, how do we become the best friends that we can possibly be? Thankfully, God has a lot to say about our friendships, about how we can be the best BFF that we can possibly be.

Why are you STILL friends with that person?

And ultimately, how do we become the best friends that we can possibly be?

Thankfully, God has a lot to say about our friendships, about how we can be the best BFF that we can possibly be.

Tonight, I want us to look at .

Here, Paul writes to the church in a city called Corinth.

Paul is a guy whose life was transformed by Jesus.

Paul was literally persecuting Christians, and then he had an encounter with the risen Jesus and his life changed dramatically.

In this letter, Paul is writing to a group of believers just like you and me.

We start here in , “Love is …”

Let’s stop here. Before we get any further, we must understand something important.

God calls us to love our BFFs. In fact, the two most important commandments—the two things that God tells us we need to—are to love HIM and love OTHERS.

When Paul is writing about love, he’s talking about the people that we are TO love. We are to LOVE our BFFs.

Being an awesome friend starts with LOVE.

This passage is recited all the time in weddings,

and it relates to the relationship between a husband and wife.

But let’s be real … we are to love everyone, whether it’s our spouse, our best friend, or even our enemies.

And so this passage relates to ANYONE that we need to love.

Let’s continue reading.

(NIV)

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Let’s start off with the first one.

Being an awesome friend means being patient.

Patience is a tough skill that we all need more.

Here’s the thing about patience: it is always for something or someone who annoys you.

Nobody is ever patient with something that they enjoy.

Nobody says, “I am being really patient with these cookies that I’m eating!”

Patience is only required when something or someone is getting on our nerves.

When we talk about being a good friend, about being the best friend we can be, we have to be patient.

None of us are perfect. We all have things that make us unique.

We all have our bad habits.

Think about your parents—what is something that they do that annoys you?

OK, got something on your mind? Well, someone has something about you that annoys them and bugs them.

And that’s OK!

Patience means loving that person right where they are.

Patience means that we stay with our friends even when it gets tough.

Patience means that WHEN our friends get on our nerves, we will stay by their side.

Let’s go to the next one: Being an awesome friend means being kind.

God desires for us to be kind to each other, to build each other up and not burn each other down.

If someone didn’t know you and your best friend, would they describe the way you treat each other as “kind”?

Let’s be real for a second.

Some of us here do things that they feel is loving.

We joke around, we play fight, and from the outside, this behavior doesn’t look loving, it doesn’t look kind.

And when we joke around with each other and rip on each other, it hurts us.

We may not admit it, but often what we say to each other hurts.

Being kind is being respectful.

Being kind is speaking well of each other.

Some of you need to start being kind to your friends.

Some of you feel that you are kind in your heart, but you haven’t expressed that kindness.

Being kind is doing something nice for someone without expecting something in return.

Being a jerk is the opposite of being kind. Don’t be a jerk!

Paul says next that love does not envy or boast, and that love is not proud.

Being an awesome friend means being humble.

Being humble is a hard skill to pull off sometimes.

Part of being humble is being content with what you have and who you are.

Sometimes, though, we get caught in the humble brag.

You know what I mean … when you are trying to discreetly brag about something.

You say, “No big deal. NBD,” and you like to use the word “only” in front of it to sound humble. “Man, I ONLY have 1,000 followers on Instagram,” or, “I ONLY have a 90 in math,” or, “I HAVE to go skiing with my family for vacation.”

How many of you have a friend who likes to humble brag?

We can all be guilty of it, can’t we?

Being humble means we aren’t envious of what others have.

It means being content with what God has given us.

Here’s another thing we see from the passage:

Being an awesome friend means putting others before yourself.

We have all heard the Golden Rule: “Treat others the way that you want to be treated.”

And that’s a great starting point, but being an awesome friend is so much more than that.

If we live by the Golden Rule, we will treat people that way that WE want to be treated.

We are going to GIVE compliments the way that we like to RECEIVE compliments.

I think we have all seen this example before, where someone gives us a gift that THEY really like, but that you don’t really like.

Maybe you are the person who gives those types of gifts.

Instead, we need to shoot for the Platinum Rule, which says, “Treat others the way that THEY want to be treated.”

It means we need to love people the way that they want to be loved.

It means we need to care for people the way that they want to be cared for. W

hen we look at our friendships, are we loving them the way that THEY want to be loved?

Have you ever taken the time to ask that question?

Here’s another thing we see from this passage:

Being an awesome friend means loving others even when it’s hard.

In fact, Paul says, “Love does not rejoice in evil but delights in truth.” Have you ever had a friend who got you in trouble?

Who got you into mischief?

When we talk about being loving to our best friends, that doesn’t mean we are OK with everything our friends do.

We are either OK with our friends’ behaviors, or we are NOT OK with them.

There’s no in between.

Some of you are letting your “best friend” get by with some terrible behavior.

We need to call out that bad behavior.

We are going to talk more about this next week, but we must be loving with TRUTH.

Telling the truth is the most loving thing we can do sometimes.

And that can be tough sometimes.

That’s why Paul said right before that love keeps no records of wrongs.

We shouldn’t keep a tally of WHO wronged WHO or how many times someone has done something wrong to us.

Loving our friends, being an awesome friend, is about forgiveness

just as much as it is about being truthful.

Some of you need to be more truthful in your friendships.

You need to be honest about how your friends are treating you and how you are treating them.

Maybe you have a friendship right now that isn’t going in the direction it should.

And if you don’t say something NOW, it will get worse.

Paul keeps talking about love, and he says that love trusts and always hopes.

Being an awesome friend means leaning in with trust and hope.

Have you ever met someone who always assumed the worst? We have a name for this, don’t we?

DEBBIE DOWNER! Ever been called a Debbie Downer?

I’m really sorry if your name is Debbie or you know a Debbie; it’s not your fault.

We have Little Debbies to make up for the negative sense of Debbie.

But have you ever been around someone who you feel like has a constant rain cloud around them? It’s tough to be around them!

Paul is saying that, instead of assuming the worst,

instead of being suspicious of each other’s intentions, we should be trusting and optimistic.

I know it can sound like a silly thing to say, but someone always has it worse than you do.

I’m not saying that everything is sunshine and rainbows and that we should IGNORE bad things when they happen.

Far from it! Bad things DO happen, and it sucks!

But we need to be hopeful! There is always someone else who has it worse. You know why I know that?

Because there are people in the ground!

When we are awesome friends,

we keep hope and trust in the forefront of our mind.

We are optimistic about our friends and their intentions.

We don’t assume the worst.

We start with TRUST, and we lean in with trust and hope.

I know that can be hard for many of you,

because people in your life have broken trust.

People in your life have left you hopeless.

But that’s not what Jesus intended for you.

Jesus Himself was betrayed by someone who was supposed to be a friend.

Jesus felt the same trust being broken, just like you and I have.

But Jesus was sent to a cross to die, and He lived a perfect life and took the sins of the world on His shoulders.

Jesus died and rose again. He defeated death.

Jesus is the perfect example of love.

All that Jesus asks is that we TRUST Him, that we trust that His death paid the price for all of our sins.

When we put our TRUST in Jesus, we have hope in eternal life.

And in order for YOU to really be an awesome friend and lean in with trust and hope,

YOU need trust and hope in Jesus.

The only way that we can be awesome friends is by watching the example of Jesus.

It’s by KNOWING Jesus—who He is, what He did. T

his kind of love we can only get from Jesus.

Being an awesome friend means loving like Jesus loved.

It’s that simple, and it’s that tough.

But just because it’s tough doesn’t mean that we should give up.

We all want to be awesome friends, and together,

we can push each other into an amazing, Spirit-filled, Christ-centered life!

Let’s pray.