Sermon Tone Analysis

Pursuing Relationships that Transform

Intro: Super Friends

“It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian bretheren.”

DB “It is burden, nothing but trouble, that we have to live in community with Christian bretheren.”

The Shape of Friendship:

How friends influence us

Frog in a pot & meat in a marinade

Their Attitude toward life as well as mine are contagious

Proverbs 13:20 22:24-25 James 4:4 Exo 33:11

Contagious attitude

Attitude is contagious, you often have a big part in setting or changing the attitude of others you are around

The Basis of Friendship: Identity in Christ

Tick or Island

Our two biggest potential problems in friendship are needing each other too much (a tick) and not needing each other enough.

(Island.)

Identity: Who I think I am and where I get worth has huge implications on friendship.

We all have Tick & Island like tendencies If I think I need a friendship with that person in order for my life to be worthwhile or for me to worth, I am a tick and will suck them dry in my friendship.

If I get my worth by being an island who gains worth and identity because I think I can handle everything on my own I will be isolated and Satan will pick me off, whether through my own pride or falling into sin because I have no one to help me fight it.

Tick I will rely on the others around me for all I need for sustenance and life and hope and meaning and purpose and acclaim and life being worth living.

Or I gain it by complete freedom from you

On the other hand Tick I will have a list of things I need you for or

Island by denying that I need help from anyone else.

Do you feel that people always let you down?

That may be because you are looking to them to give you what God has already offered you in Jesus Christ,

or Island you are looking to yourself for God’s acceptance by rejecting or competing with others.

For a tick it is often Fear of man issues, I’m not sure that I am completely accepted by God based on Jesus work so I need to gain acceptance from this person.

For an island Or it is distrust of man issues.

I’ve so removed myself from other people that I can’t accept help or warning or love because I have what it takes within myself to solve all my problems and God will be satisfied with me because of that.

This leaves behind a trail of broken, frustrated, strained, paranoid, distrusting and hurt friendships with people whom I tried to take from them what only God could give me, or only rely on myself and hope they do the same.

This is how our friendships self destruct.

“ If I am seeking to get my Identity from you, I will watch you too closely, listen to you too intently and need you too fundamentally… And because I am watching you too closely, I will become acutely aware of your weaknesses and failures.

I will become overly critical, frustrated, disappointed, hopeless and angry.

I will be angry not that you are a sinner, but because you have failed to deliver the one thing I seek from you: identity.”

Paul Tripp & Tim Lane

Filling a deep vertical trench by chucking a whole bunch of horizontal relationships into it.

What is the Answer?

Living into this fact: God has called us his friends

So the choice is yours, Frog, Meat, Tick, Island or a Friend of God.

So the key, the answer to being a good friend and having good friendships is based in knowing who you are in Christ.

I must know who I am in Christ, what He has done for me and how that transforms me, that will keep me stable, secure, accepted and at peace with God, so I don’t depend on others or myself for my identity and worth.

because I already have it from Jesus..

Would you rather have one best friend that you only spent 8 days a year with or 8 surface level friends that you could see every day?

What is the craziest (legal) thing you have ever seen a friend do?

What are the qualities of a good friend?

What are the ways that your friends have influenced you for the better?

What ways have you been influenced by friends for the worse?

What happens when we expect too much of a friend (or expect them to do what only Jesus can)?

Do you find it more tempting to be a tick or an island?

Why?

How does trusting Jesus help bring stability and joy to your friendships?