Connected: Good Friends
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Good Community
Good Community
I remember two different groups of people that I met when I was growing up.
One was a community that constantly wanted to grow in their friendship. They knew what boundaries were and they had each others back, this was when I was back in calgary, Little liam was on the play ground trying to help his best friend to not lose his playground relationship. I remeber really caring for my friends and my friends really caring for them.
I also remember the other community that was based in Regina when I was in junior high and even highschool.
The two friend groups I had here were different they did not encourage me and even if I went out of my way to build each other up I was left out to dry to many times that the group became a gathering of people who just hung out with each other becuase of the toxicity, see we feed off of teasing or making fun of each other and we defiently were not in focus on building each other up.
We are jumping into our connected series where we are talking about who we connect with. This week I want to spend time talking about friendships, who we make friends with and then in two weeks we are going to talk about when we start dating someone.
Friendships, they are hard. They are this push and pull event, like tug of war if we played tug of war right now the game would be over if one team did nothing.
It would not be a game it would just be boring and no fun.
When it comes to friendship I want to tell you a great proverb,
As iron sharpens iron,
so one person sharpens another.
I think this is pretty straight forward.
anyone a blacksmith in here that can help us jump in and understand this?
no,
well it means that we are going to directly influence growth in our friends and the same is vice versa, they will directly influcence our lifes.
This is easy to see, our sr girls are all friends and they all love playing basket ball, thats a direct connection.
If you make friends with someone you got to know two things here are the two big points, as Bob say write this down:
Our friends will shape us
we will shape our friends
What does that mean well the first one is simple,
if you make a friend who is really toxic or is constantly getting in trouble you have to know that it might lead you to getting into trouble.
Its like when we play games and I start to cheat, you guys start to cheat to right? I encouraged you, not by saying anything but by being who I am, a horrible person who cheats in youth group games.
But if you have friends who are encouraging you to take the next step in your life, or your faith. If you have friends who are calling you out when they see a drastic character flaw then thats something to charish.
but it also works the other way around,
If you are the one who is constantly bring down a friend or even a group of friends then you are doing the oppisite of what you are called to.
Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
You are called to love your neighbor, thats not the person you live next to but is any person you are around. Jesus didn’t say love those who live across the world from you, he said love your neighbor.
Is your friend your neighbor?
yes you and your friends hopefully are more then neighbors you both are connected and know each other, you know what strengths they have, but you probably also know what kind of flaws that they have.
So here is my challenge to you, I want you to encourage your friend this week.
EASY RIGHT?!
Who is with me?
all I want is for you to encourage a friend.
Anyone want a harder challenge?
I want you to encourage all of your friends, each one you have. I mean take the time to acknowledge something about them that they doing well, something meaningful, not “you have nice hair today” Something with meat, like:
“You are a awesome leader”
“I think you have potential to be professional dancer”
“I have seen you work hard on our group project and I apperciate that”
Something with some meat.
We can’t pick and choose the people we are around, especially in a small town like this we are connected to the people that we are around. We have to be better people and love them, encouraging them, building them up, championing on to build a better life.
That is one of the things we are called to when we love our neighbors.
What is the nicest thing a friend has done for you?
Do you think who is around you effects you? why or why not?
How can encouraging someone help them grow?
Why do who we have as friends connect with being a Christian?
Is it wrong to be friends with someone who does not follow Jesus?
Who are you going to encourage this week and how?