Embracing Jesus' Friendship: Love, Unity, and Kindness

### Quotes for Outreach

1. "When Jesus says that he wants us to have life in abundance, you know, what does that mean? How does that look? How does that manifest itself as we live our lives? This morning, we are looking particularly at this phrase, you know, Jesus is our friend. It's one of the first phrases that we learn. You know, we teach our children about friendship with God, friendship with Jesus." [46:12] (23 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "Jesus loves us and accepts us as friends just as we are but he loves us too much just to leave us this way. Jesus would love you and accept you all your warts all of your shortcomings all your sins Jesus loves you but Jesus loves you so much that he is not going to leave you that way and as we follow him in friendship he will be with us every step of the way helping us and guiding us." [52:02] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Jesus throughout the gospels you know he is accused of being friends with the wrong kinds of people he's been friends with the tax collectors and and the sinners jesus is accused and and and criticized for spending too much time with the poor and the tax collectors and the adulterers and and other undesirables yet jesus loves and accepts all jesus is friends with all whether young or old or rich or poor people from all different kinds can love and support and grow in jesus." [55:34] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Friendship is mutual it's a hand extending and another reaching back and so how do we do that what does it look like and as school started this week i was reminded of of an image that went viral uh a couple of years ago uh you might have seen this show up somewhere but it's these two little boys one was named uh chris christian uh and the other was named connor you know the first day of school connor who by the way is autistic was having a really difficult time and he was standing on by himself crying and christian this little boy eight years old not didn't know this person completely stranger to him went over and took this little boy's hand and stood with him and then led him into the school." [56:39] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "It occurs to me as we close today that hate is a four-letter word. But you know what? So is love. So is love. Negativity is a 10-letter word. But so is positivity. That's also a 10-letter word. Lying is a seven-letter word, right? L-Y-I-N-G. Five-letter word. Lying is a five-letter word. But so is truth. Enemies. That's a seven-letter word. But so is friends. So it's a two-sided world that we live in. But we can make choices. And we can choose love. And we can choose truth. And we can choose positivity. We can choose to be friends." [01:01:30] (76 seconds) (Download raw clip | Making vertical clip | )

### Quotes for Members

1. "Jesus says this, no one has greater love than to give up one's life for one's friend. Reminds me of a story. You probably have heard it before. Maybe you have. But I think it makes a wonderful point. It's about this man who was walking one day and maybe he was looking at his cell phone. I don't know, whatever. But he didn't notice there was this big hole in the sidewalk. And so he falls down in this big deep hole in the sidewalk and he can't get out. And he's calling for help. And so who should come along but a doctor? He's saying, hey, hey, help me. Help me get out of this hole. So the doctor, writes him a prescription and throws it down into the hole. Well, that didn't help. And then comes along a preacher. He says, hey, help me. Help me out of this hole. And the preacher writes down a prayer, throws it down to the hole. Of course, that doesn't help him get out of the hole either. Then a third person came along. He says, hey, I'm in this hole. I can't get out. Can you help me get out of this hole? And so the man, jumped down in the hole with him. And he says, why did you do that? Now we're both stuck in this hole. And the guy said, yeah, I know. But I've been here before. And I know the way out. It's what Jesus did for us. Friendship with God. Friendship with Christ. Jesus came, surrendered his life so that we might know the love of God and have friendship with him." [01:01:30] (111 seconds) (Download raw clip | Making vertical clip | )

2. "Jesus loves us and accepts us as friends just as we are but he loves us too much just to leave us this way Jesus would love you and accept you all your warts all of your shortcomings all your sins Jesus loves you but Jesus loves you so much that he is not going to leave you that way and as we follow him in friendship he will be with us every step of the way helping us and guiding us these are some of the things that he said if we're going to follow Jesus if we're going to be all in with Jesus this is my commandment love each other just as I have loved you but God tells he says you are my friends if you do what i command you he says i give you these commandments so that you can love each other and we get the idea as we see these verses that jesus didn't mean for the love just to stay contained and isolated within us but this was love that was meant to be shared and if we're going to be all in with jesus if we're going to experience that life that abundant life and all its fullness that means growing in love love of self love of god but also love of others love of neighbor." [52:02] (86 seconds) (Making raw clip | Making vertical clip | )

3. "Let's think about that first friend group now he is talking in these passages he is talking to his his disciples he's he's teaching them so this friend group these 12 disciples this rag tag bunny of the individual individuals and they all had their own personalities they had all had their own beliefs they all had their own quirks i think sometimes we can have the idea that they were just all alike they were all fishermen and they they were there were a lot of fishermen for true but also in this friend group there was matthew who was a tax collector who had worked to support and promote the roman government also in this friend group there was a guy named simon the zealot and simon simon had worked to oppose the roman government and to overthrow it by violent means and so these two could not have been more different you know and and with the worldly sense of the time back then they were on the opposite ends of the political spectrum they were on the you know diametrically opposed they would you know through the world sense they would have been enemies and yet and yet they both loved jesus and they both wanted to follow jesus and so they were able to lay aside those differences and work together as friends and i think that is such such a such an important message for us today in this world because sometimes be so deeply divided and we got churches dividing we got families that are feuding with one another we got people who are deep friending their friends on social media left and right we are divided right now right but jesus calls us to look outside that and work together and be friends." [53:43] (60 seconds) (Making raw clip | Making vertical clip | )

4. "Friendship is mutual it's a hand extending and another reaching back and so how do we do that what does it look like and as school started this week i was reminded of of an image that went viral uh a couple of years ago uh you might have seen this show up somewhere but it's these two little boys one was named uh chris christian uh and the other was named connor you know the first day of school connor who by the way is autistic was having a really difficult time and he was standing on by himself crying and christian this little boy eight years old not didn't know this person completely stranger to him went over and took this little boy's hand and stood with him and then led him into the school it was such a beautiful beautiful image and it was so populous powerful that I think it moved people. And so his mother, Christian's mother, saw that and was so proud of her son, she took a picture of it and put it on social media, and Connor's mother responded." [56:39] (69 seconds) (Making raw clip | Making vertical clip | )

5. "Jesus says this, no one has greater love than to give up one's life for one's friend. Reminds me of a story. You probably have heard it before. Maybe you have. But I think it makes a wonderful point. It's about this man who was walking one day and maybe he was looking at his cell phone. I don't know, whatever. But he didn't notice there was this big hole in the sidewalk. And so he falls down in this big deep hole in the sidewalk and he can't get out. And he's calling for help. And so who should come along but a doctor? He's saying, hey, hey, help me. Help me get out of this hole. So the doctor, writes him a prescription and throws it down into the hole. Well, that didn't help. And then comes along a preacher. He says, hey, help me. Help me out of this hole. And the preacher writes down a prayer, throws it down to the hole. Of course, that doesn't help him get out of the hole either. Then a third person came along. He says, hey, I'm in this hole. I can't get out. Can you help me get out of this hole? And so the man, jumped down in the hole with him. And he says, why did you do that? Now we're both stuck in this hole. And the guy said, yeah, I know. But I've been here before. And I know the way out. It's what Jesus did for us. Friendship with God. Friendship with Christ. Jesus came, surrendered his life so that we might know the love of God and have friendship with him." [01:01:30] (111 seconds) (Making raw clip | Making vertical clip | )