War Buddies | Week 5

is to not say anything, man, when you see somebody hurting. Because if you're the type of friend that doesn't say something to your friend, then you're really not that good of a friend. Or we see somebody struggling, and we think we've gotta fix the problem, man. So we go in guns blazing, and we go in ready for war.

Problem with that is when you go to war, you bring weapons, and weapons cause wounds. And too many friendships, dude, are wrecked because we don't know how to communicate with our friends. We don't know how to argue with our friends. We don't know how to help our friends.

Today, we're gonna look at a story of David. We're gonna jump back into David's life. If you got a bible, go second Samuel

chapter 11. But we're gonna jump back into David's life and we're gonna look at a moment in David's life that's just it's huge. It's it's a pivotal moment in his life with one of his friends. And it's one of those moments where it could seriously go either way. It could either get really shady really quick and lots of people could die or some good things could happen from it. So it's one of those moments. It's in second Samuel 11. And and here's where we're going. This is kinda the big idea or the thought for today and and really the thought to how to do this and to to disagree with friends and still be friends is this. Real friend fights to make you better,

not to win an argument. A real friend is gonna fight to make you better. They're gonna fight to point you towards God, not to prove that they're right.

Real friends fight to to to make you better, not to win an argument. It's from Proverbs 18, 24 where it says, there are friends who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.

Now there's a cool story, David's life. Second Samuel 11, we're gonna start in verse one and just read through this, unpack it as we go. So I I think this could be game changer for us. Verse one kicks off like this. It says, in in the spring of the year, when kings normally go out to war, David sent Joab

and the Israelite army to fight the Ammonites. They destroyed the Ammonite army and laid siege to the city of Rabbah. However, David stayed behind in Jerusalem. Now

we we need to address this real quick before we dive into the story. And honestly, this doesn't have anything to do with our conversation today, but it's too big to pass through and then to not at least address. When Samuel wrote this letter and he's telling us this story, when when Samuel puts this down, he makes a really

he he goes out of his way to explain something to us. You see, right now, it's springtime.

Right now, kings go off to war. Right now, if you're a king, your job is to go out and to protect your land. Right now, it's spring. So what what you would do as a king is you would get on your donkey, your camel, your horse, whatever you got, you would load up and you would ride your area. You would check all of your boundaries and you would look for anybody coming in and getting too close because you don't want somebody coming in and attacking your people. So you would check every boundary to make sure everything is safe. As a king, you would go through and you would check all your land just to make everybody is doing what they're supposed to, everybody's safe, everything is in good standing. As a king, hopefully, your land is growing and you're gonna need more land. So as a king, you would go to war and you would get more land from the people around you that were just too close. And as a king, that was your job.

And as a king, David sends his friends to do that. And he takes a little mini vacay in Jerusalem. I think that Samuel is telling us this, and he wants us to draw this out, and he wants us to see this point because this is huge. Everything that we're about to read about David's life shouldn't have happened.

Everything that we're about to read that takes place in these next few verses shouldn't have taken place. And the only reason it does is because David is not where he's supposed to be. And if you'll check yourself for just a minute and you'll be honest and evaluate where you are in life, some of the problems and some of the things that we're in is because we put ourself in places that we shouldn't be. And every time we're in a spot that we shouldn't be, bad things happen.

And when you go where you're not supposed to go, you gotta get ready for something that's not supposed to happen because that's everything we're about to read about David shouldn't have taken place. And Samuel's telling us that what what's about to come next

shouldn't be there because David should be out doing what kings do. Verse two. Late one afternoon after his midday rest had a rough day, dude. Midday rest. David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath.

He sent someone to find out who she was, and he was told she is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Then David sent messengers to get her. And when she came to the palace, he slept with her.

She had just completed the purification rites after having her menstrual period, then she returned home. Later, when Bathsheba discovered that she was pregnant, she sent David a message saying, I'm pregnant.

Now let me let me clear this up a little bit because if you're like me when I'm reading that, I'm like, dude, Bathsheba's nasty. Like, who goes on the roof to take a bath? Like, she's filthy. Who does that? Right? This is the hoochie mom up there, like, getting naked in front of everybody. You don't do that. That's not true.

This this is is is not that. You you need to understand culture. Right now, where these guys are, the best place for you to take a bath was on the roof. And what they would do to protect your privacy was they would have coverings that would go around the edges of the roof that would kinda be like a screen that you couldn't see through or like a really heavy cloth that would go around and would protect your privacy on the roof. And you would go up to the roof to take a bath because it made the most sense. And nobody could see into your roof because the houses were all the same height, and you had this huge fence guarding it. The only place that you could see into somebody's roof over the guarded little gated areas was the palace because that's the only building taller than everything else.

Nobody's supposed to be in the palace because they're supposed to be at war. So Bathsheba's doing the most modest thing possible to bathe right now is to go to a place where nobody could see her, and it's a whole lot better than going to a creek or a river where anybody could walk up on her.

So she's man, she's just doing what normal people would do in the day. David, though, I think he knew. It it was common practice when people would bathe during this time of day, and David knew that the palace was tall. And I think he knew that if he went up, there was a good chance he might see something.

And sure enough, dude, he goes up on the roof, and and he sees Bathsheba bathing. And I don't know what happened next. I mean, I I know what happened next. I don't know if it was, like, Barry White, like, they just got back to the palace and she's pregnant.

And now David's stuck in one of the roughest parts of his life. Dude, he's got this other man's wife pregnant. What's he gonna do? So he gets a little he gets a little creative.

Tries to man, he's got to work his way out of this problem, right? Because this is huge. You're the king and this can't be. You've got to do something. So this is his plan. This is plan A. Man, he calls for Joab, the general. And he's like, Joab, man, need to know what's happening right now. Tell me what's happening in the world of war. How are we doing out there? Are we winning? Are we progressing? Are we pushing them back? Are we protecting our borders? Dude, tell me what's going on. Send, I don't know, send back Uriah, the Hittite. Have him tell me what's happening right now.

So Uriah comes back and he's telling David, hey, this is what's happening, dude. We're killing it right now. Amorites, we messed them up, dude. They're pushed back. We got this going on. We're increasing your territory right here. All of this is happening. David's like, that's awesome, Uriah. You earned the rest, man. Go home. Enjoy your house. Enjoy your wife. Take the night off, and we'll send you back to battle tomorrow.

You see, he's thinking that Uriah will go home and then think that the baby's his. Uriah, though, is an honorable man, dude. Uriah, check this out. David goes to bed. He wakes up the next morning, and he finds out that Uriah doesn't go home. Instead, he sleeps on the palace gate at the steps with the guards.

So David's like, dude, what are you doing, Uriah? I just gave you a pass to go to the house. Enjoy your family. Enjoy your wife. What are you doing? And Uriah tells David in that moment, king, I can't go home and enjoy my wife when I have brothers laying down their lives.

David's plan's messed up. So he's got plan b. Plan b is sketchy. Dude, plan b is jacked up. You see, plan b was he wrote out this letter and he handed it to Uriah and he's like, dude, go back to Joab and give him this note. So he does. Uriah goes back to the battlefront. He goes to Joab. He gives him this letter.

Joab opens it up and the letter says, hey, I want you to take the biggest, the the nastiest, gnarliest part of the battle right now. And in the morning, I want you to attack at full force. And I want Uriah the Hittite to lead that charge. And as soon as it gets into the heat of the battle, I want you to call a full retreat and leave Uriah there to die.

Next morning rolls around, dude. Battle comes up. They send everybody out. Uriah is leading the fight. Sure enough, Joab calls a full retreat. Everybody pulls back, and Uriah is killed. David marries Bathsheba.

This is a messed up moment in David's life.

This is a hard moment in David's life. And what comes next is huge. And the conflict that's about to happen, if we can navigate that the same way that Nathan does, it's a game changer for us. You see, Nathan was David's friend. And in this moment, God tells Nathan to go and confront David on this.

How horrible of a job is that? Right? If you're Nathan, can't you just see him going, dude, is there not anybody else, God, for real? I'll do anything. Give me leprosy. I do not want this. Because you just he just had Uriah killed. What's to say he goes in and calls David out on it and he doesn't

man, he's the next dude leaving the leading the charge.

Or he's out behind the city getting hit with rocks. I mean, what's what's to say that David doesn't take it well? Let me make this a little modern for us. You're at an entry level position at a company and your boss, your supervisor comes to you and says, hey, Tim, this is what I need you to do. Tomorrow morning, the owner, the guy who built this business is coming in. He's an idiot. I need you to straighten him out and tell him all the ways that he's messing this company up. And you at your entry level, you know, minimum wage position, you're gonna go in and the president, the CEO of the company, I would need you to go in and straighten him out because he is running us into the ground. And I need you to tell him how big of a moron he is and give him some advice on how to do it better.

Now not many of us are like, dude, sign me up. Some of you will because you hate your job. But most of us are like, dude, there ain't no chance I'm gonna go in. I that no. That's where Nathan is at right now.

What Nathan does next is huge. Turn the page. Go to chapter 12. And remember, a a friend is someone who who fights to make you better, not to win an argument. How Nathan handles this story, how Nathan handles this situation, how Nathan handles this moment in David's life

is a game changer. Dude, I'm telling you. If we could do this with our friends, if we could be this type of friend, it's gonna revolutionize our friendships. Look in verse one of chapter 12. And and before I read this story, you need to just understand something. This story is weird.

Like, it it's just it's jacked up. It talks about, like, sheep and cattle, and it's and you're like it sounds like Yoda about halfway through it. And you're like, what are you talking about? And I don't know, honestly. I tried to figure it out and I've never been around sheep or cattle and probably only two of us have. I I don't know what he's talking about. But to David, made sense. And to Nathan, it made sense. So it's a little bit different because, again, it's a different culture. Don't get hung up on the weirdness of what we're about to read. And it's gonna be easy to do. Don't lose sight

of what happens in this conversation because it's weird. Focus not on the story so much, but on the heart and the intent behind what Samuel or what Nathan says. Don't get lost in the goofy, but follow what's said and follow it with me in verse one. So the Lord said to Nathan, the prophet, to tell David this story.

There were two men in a certain town. One was rich, one was poor. The rich man owned a great many sheep and cattle.

The poor man owned nothing but one little lamb he had bought. He raised the little lamb and it grew up with his children. It ate from the man's own plate and drank from his cup. He cuddled it in his arms like a baby daughter. So weird. That's like the people who put, like like clothes and stuff on their their dog. That's

and you carry it in a purse. Y'all shouldn't do that. He cuddled in his arms like a baby on 1st Floor. Sorry. One day, a guest arrived at the home of the rich man, but instead of killing an animal from his own flock or herd, he took the poor man's lamb and killed it and prepared it for his guests. David was furious.

As surely as the Lord lives, he vowed any man who would do such a thing deserves to die. He must repay four lambs to the poor man for the one he stole and for having no pity. Then David's then Nathan said to David, you are that man. Dude, if anyone in any point in history had the

right to come in fully locked and loaded and to light somebody up right now, it's Nathan. If anybody has the right to do that in this conversation as a friend, Nathan has every right in the world to walk in front of David and just say, dude, you are an idiot. What are you thinking?

You have everything. How dare you do this? And man, what are you doing? God called you to be king. What are you thinking? And every right in the world to go in and go to war.

The problem with going to war is the weapons. And we we bring words as our weapons. And, man, if if you're a friend, you you know what words to use because you know what to say that's really gonna hurt, and and you know what to say that's really gonna dig and bite.

And our bodies are designed to heal themselves, but dude, your heart, man, it carries wounds that last forever. And it would be so easy for Nathan to go in and do what we do and use some of these forever words.

You always do this, David. You're always such you're you're never gonna break this cycle. You're always this type of person. This is you never think past and use these words that we don't have to be accurate because we're not trying to be correct. We're just trying to win.

Instead, Nathan lays down the weapons, and he walks into David, and his full intent is not to win an argument, but is to win his friend pointing towards God.

Let me see if this helps. We're friends, I feel like I can say this. I'm a redneck.

I just didn't, dude. I don't know how to fix that. It's just ingrained. It's like it's embedded in me. It's ingrained in my soul and my DNA. I'm a redneck. What that means, if you don't know what that is, I I I got a Jeep a long time ago, and when I bought it, it was, you know, it was normal and nice. And I was like, that's fun. I gotta get I had to put a four inch lift on it because it didn't it needs it. It's a Jeep. And then it needed bigger tires. And then when I drive around, I see a mountain and stuff. I don't think, hey, that's kinda cool. I think I can drive over that. And that's the first thought that goes through my head. And when it rains, I don't think, oh, I should zip up my windows. I think, dude, that's gonna be

stuck. And that's just top of my mind, so I gotta winch because I'm gonna get stuck one of these days, dude, I can't wait to get stuck. I like to hunt. I like to shoot like know some of y'all are like, Tim, they're animals and they're fun. Yeah. I know, dude. They taste so good.

You can die skinny. I'm a die fat, that's okay.

I'm a redneck. And so I got this Jeep, dude, I got it lifted. It's all jacked up. I got these huge tires on it, and I love to go out. I I got this book, man. It's from Arizona Parks and Games. And supposedly, and I it's gotta be true because I found it on the Internet. But supposedly,

Wyatt Earp's wife is buried out by Apache Junction somewhere. Alright. In not Apache Junction. I'm sorry. Florence Junction. Kind of out in that area. And I've got the GPX coordinates to it. And you've gotta have some gnarly stuff to get back there. And I wanna see it because I don't know why. I just wanna see it.

I'm going back to try to find it in my Jeep and I start to smell something in my Jeep. And I'm like, oh, that's not good. So I turn around, I come back to the house and sure enough, dude, I don't know what I did to it, but I I messed this thing up. Dude, it's dripping antifreeze down.

I like to fix stuff, and I'm fairly handy, but I'm really good at breaking things, and I'm better at breaking things than I'm at fixing things. So I look at it, and I realize real quick that this is out of my pay grade. And so I take it to a mechanic, and I'm telling him what's going on. He's like, yeah, dude, we can fix it, but it's gonna bam, this amount of money. And I'm like, dude, that's more than I paid for the Jeep almost. That's crazy.

But I love my Jeep. I love being a redneck, so I bit the bullet and I pay him to fix it. Drive the Jeep home, wake up the next morning, start it

dripping antifreeze still. It's not as bad. I mean, it's not as bad of a leak, but it's still there. So I take it back to the mechanic. Hey, dude. I thought we had this fixed. You had it for like a week. You gotta hook a brother up. Like, it's perfect time of year. I need to be out right now, like, driving through, tearing stuff up, and I can't. Can you fix it? Oh, yeah. We're sorry. We argue a little bit about whose job it is to pay for it this time. And I'm like, dude, I already paid you for this once.

Getting a little bit of a scuff. He takes the Jeep, fixes it. I take it back home. Couple days later, I go back out. Still lit up banana freeze.

So I'm at this point right now because this is real life. This isn't the story. This is for real my life right now. I'm mad. Like, I'm ticked off. I paid this dude a crazy amount of money to fix my stupid Jeep so I could go out and redneck in the mountains, and I can't right now. And it's the perfect weather for it. And I'm afraid to go out because it's still dripping antifreeze. So I'm arguing with my mechanic about, dude, do your job. I paid you a lot of money. Fix this.

He tells me all these sad stories. Hey. The guy that worked on it, we had to let go. He wasn't a good mechanic. And I'm like, dude, I know that. So

you fix it. Do something. And so we're in this argument where he doesn't wanna fix it or he does wanna fix it. He just wants to charge me again for it. And I'm like, dude, already paid for it. I ain't paying you anything else.

My oldest is 19. Four years ago, I started teaching her how to drive. She's horrible.

We we were driving, and I don't know where to take her, like, because I'm fairly new to the to the valley. So we were just driving through, like, the residentials at our but we would go out really late at night when everybody was asleep, you know, and every and so there's not any cars, and we'd drive through parking lots and do that kind of stuff. But I wanted her to drive with, you know, cars on the side of the road because that's to me, that was important. Wanted to learn that. So we're driving through the residentials at my house, and and there's this man, it comes, there's a 90 degree turn right by where I live. And we're coming up to that fast. And I'm like, baby, you gotta brake.

Nothing. I'm like, baby, no. You gotta brake. And so I'm getting a little bit louder. I like, brake. And and I'm trying to get her to stop. They're like, gotta turn. And and she does this. I'm like, baby, that's a flex. That's not a turn. Like, come on. You gotta turn. So we're two wheels on the curb

about to make some poor house into a drive in. And luckily, it was late at night and they were asleep. And I'm talking to my daughter about, hey. When I say brake,

it's this concept of you hitting the brake. And crazy the car stops. It's nuts. I don't know how it works, but it's amazing. You gotta brake when you're coming up. And when you're hitting the house, baby, you gotta turn

the wheel, which means the car turns with you. And so we're having this talk. And then we're you know, I'm teaching her how to drive, and I learned real fast that I'm a horrible and driving instructor. So we get someone to do it for us so I don't go to jail.

And as they're they're teaching her, she's taking me out showing me what she's learned. And so we're driving around, and I'm like, baby, that's awesome. You didn't hit that house.

And I'm praising her for that. And then we're going back to the house, she parks. I mean, you didn't hit the mailboxes. Baby, this is awesome. You're doing so good. Look at you. You're not on the like, in the driveway. You're you're in the driveway. You're not on the sidewalk. Like, you're doing so good at this. You didn't I didn't die. I'm not afraid. Like, I did I only prayed once this whole trip.

When

you walk into a conversation with your friends, do you walk in like the mechanic, or do you walk in like your kids? Does that make sense? When you walk into a conversation with your friends, do you walk in and treat that conversation like you would the mechanic?

Or do you walk in and treat it like you would your kids? And I get it, dude. I love my kids. I love my daughter, dude. She's man, I'll do anything for her. And I I want what's best for her. So when I have conversations with her, it's different.

If we're gonna walk into a conversation with our friends, dude, we we gotta go in and not be right, but we've gotta go in with the only the only goal is to not win an argument because this is free. You don't win an argument ever. We gotta go in to not win an argument, but to point them towards God. Skip down to verse 13.

I want you to see how this works out. And I think the only reason that verse 13 is is gonna say what it says is because of how Nathan went to David. Because he went to David with humility, because he went to David with this this

love and this desire to not be right, to not win and show him that he was wrong, but to pointing back towards God. Verse 13 says, Then David confessed to Nathan, I've sinned against the Lord.

David has this moment of clarity because of how his friend came to him. He has this moment of clarity where he sits there and he's like, dude, I I screwed up. I messed this up, dude. I've sinned before God. And Nathan being a good friend says, yes, but the Lord has forgiven you and you're not gonna die from this sin.

You see, when we go in not loaded, putting the weapons down, and we go in with the desire to point our friends towards God and not to be right or to win, because again, you don't win an argument. You may win an argument, but you lose the friendship.

Win an argument, and you're gonna also win the opportunity to be alone and own a whole bunch of cats because that's about all that's gonna happen when you win every argument.

Our desire is to point people towards God. I wanted to give us something tangible to walk out of here with because I I think this is huge, and and this is a great story. But what can we take from this? When we have conversations, when we have

moments with our friends where we get a moment to speak into their life, where they get a moment to speak into our life, what are some things that we can do to make those moments better? So I came up with like four things that I think helps us through this. And this is it's really simple, but if we can do these four things when we have a conversation with our friend, I think it'll be beneficial, and it'll strengthen the friendship instead of severing it and break it. So, man, these are four things, hopefully, that you can take and and hopefully you use. I'm I'm trying to every every conversation I have to put these in play. One is this.

Unless God tells you to and you've spent time with God, don't go talk to your friend about something. If you need the if you feel the need to correct your friend and you haven't spent time with God first,

that's a conversation that doesn't need to happen. You need to spend time with God before you spend time with your friend. Nathan went to David not because it was Nathan's idea, but because it was God's. And he wouldn't have known that was God's idea if he hadn't spent time with God.

He spent time with God, and God gave him this jacked up story about a sheep and some cattle. And that's what David needed to hear because that's what woke him up to it. And when we spend time with God, God's gonna help us know what to say to help our our friends understand what's going on. So before you have that conversation,

spend time with God. Second one, when you walk into that conversation, are you going in with the desire to be right or to be righteous?

If you're going into that conversation with a desire to be right and to point out what your friend is doing wrong, then you need to understand you can be right and it doesn't help anything. You can be right and break the friendship. You can be right and be alone.

Because being right doesn't even get you participation trophy. Being right doesn't do anything for you other than you're right. And I don't know about you, but I hate being around people who are right all the time because if you're always right, I'm always wrong, and you're gonna get on my nerves quick. There's

no fun being around people who are right. But when you're righteous, oh, dude, you get righteous means that you're putting their needs above your own. Righteous means that you're you're trying to make them better. And if we can try to be righteous and not right, it's gonna change things.

Third one is this. When when we go into that conversation, if we can offer solutions

instead of more problems, it's gonna help things tremendously. Because another thing I hate when I talk to people is someone who is so pessimistic that all they do is constantly give me more and more problems. And I understand that you have an engineering background, and that's how your mind works. Dude, engineer me a solution because I don't need to hear about the 900,000 problems that are gonna happen. I need to hear about some ways that we can make it better.

And if we're gonna be a friend, don't need us necessarily to point out all the problems. They may need us to go in and help them with some solutions to get to something better. And solutions don't have to fix the problem. It can fix the moment. So come up with solutions

and not more problems. And then the last one, and this one's probably my favorite. Man, we we've gotta praise the small growth that we see in our friends.

If we're gonna take the moment to go and to speak into their lives, then we need to take the moment to praise those small moments of growth. Dude, I've I've got a buddy that just accepted Christ not too long, just a couple months ago. And this dude was like, he was far from God. This guy was jacked up. In his prayer to accept Jesus, he cussed like three times, and that's how he accepted Christ. And now when he prays, like he dropped the f bomb almost every prayer. And I'm looking at this dude and I'm like, God's gonna strike you. You can't say that in your prayer.

He just he doesn't know. He he doesn't know that that's not

that's not what you're supposed to do yet. So we're hanging out and we're man, we're we're driving around. This car cuts him off and he didn't flip him off. And I was like, dude, did you see that? Like, two months ago, you'd have shot that lady the bird. This is so sick. Look at you. You're growing, dude. Like, you you're a different person.

We go out to eat, and they bring our food late, it's cold and nasty. And he didn't say anything. So we're sitting there eating our food, and I'm telling him, dude, you get two months ago, you would have cussed that waiter out, and they'd be in the back right now spitting in our food. And I wouldn't eat it because I know what they do back there.

But you didn't. You you you're you're getting this. Do see the growth that's in your life? And some of you are like, Tim, of course, he's not cussing out a waiter and he's not flipping people off because you're not supposed to do that. You know that. He doesn't. He's getting there.

The the crazy thing about when you give people when you encourage people is it encourages them. Crazy how that works. When you encourage people, it encourages them.

And when you encourage people to do better and you encourage small little bumps of growth, they do those little small bumps of growth. And eventually those little small things come into Man, they make some huge thing. Makes drastic changes in people's lives.

So if we're gonna take the initiative and follow God's command to go and to talk to someone about what they're doing, then we need to encourage them along the process as well.

If we can do this, dude, it it changes things around us.

I don't know if you've caught this over the last four weeks. Everything that we've talked about with this whole friendship thing and being a friend and what friends look like, everything that we've talked about, every characteristic, every attribute that we've said are all things that's Jesus. Have you noticed that?

Everything that we've done in describing a friend are things that describe Jesus. And I don't know if you know this or have made this connection yet, but the best friend that you're ever gonna have, the friend that sticks closer than a brother, the friend who's never gonna abandon you, who's never gonna leave you behind is this dude named Jesus.

And some of you are like, Tim, I get that, but Jesus would never wanna be friends with me because I have all of this. Have you not listened to the story of David?

This fool was jacked up. In verse 13, Nathan looks at him and says, Yes, but God's forgiven you. You read about David's life and he's labeled by God as a man after God's own heart. God forgave David. And if he can forgive David, I guarantee you, he can forgive you. And he desperately wants to just hang out with you.

And his desire isn't to be right. If he wanted to be right, we'd all be dead. His desire is to be righteous. And in his righteousness, he became the best friend we ever had because he left heaven and bought our freedom. So he didn't talk a good game of being a friend. He showed a good game by being our friend.

I thought it would be would be good today to celebrate that friendship. And

the only way I really know to do that is to do something that Jesus did with his friends. And if Jesus could do this with David in his life and God could do that there, imagine what he could do with us. Man, when you walked in the door, you should have got a little cup that that looks like this. If you didn't get one of these, some really cool people are gonna be walking around. Dude, just wave your hand in the air like you just don't care. Holla.

And get one of these. We're gonna do something that Jesus set up with his friends thousands of years ago. That's a moment that we get to celebrate the greatest friend in history, that we get to celebrate the moment that this friend paid for our freedom, that set us free.

Now in doing this, can can I just say this? If you don't know Jesus in this moment,

I'm gonna ask you to just kinda hang out and watch for just a second. Not because we wanna keep you away from something, but because what we're gonna celebrate probably isn't gonna make sense to you because you don't know what we're celebrating yet.

Because this cup isn't I mean, it's not magical. There's nothing really all that great in it. I mean, they ordered on the Internet. It's not really there's nothing special to this cup. But the cracker and the juice, what this cup represent represents, the elements that this cup represents is powerful.

Dude, it represents the fact that there's a God that loves you so much that He willingly, to be the greatest friend ever, gave His life for you. To buy your freedom from all the sin, from all the things that hold you back, He paid that debt for you. And and,

man, I I can't think of a better way to do that than to do what Jesus did. And thousands of years ago, in Matthew 26, Matthew records that Jesus got together with his friends, they were sitting and having a meal together. How cool that be to just sit down and be sharing In N Out with God and just be eating and having a meal.

And during the meal, Jesus is gonna be crucified not long after this. And during the meal, he pulls out some bread and some wine, and he has a moment with his friends. Before we do this and we do what Jesus did with his friends, I don't wanna jump into that quickly and lose the power of what we're doing in this moment because I think we do that too often.

I wanna give you a moment to just sit and to thank God for this sacrifice first. If you know Jesus, just take the next thirty seconds to just thank him for being that friend, to thank him for this sacrifice, but then also to just ask him to evaluate your life right now because we don't wanna go into this moment

carrying baggage. Because if we have anything in our life that shouldn't be there, this is a great moment to tell God about it and go into this as pure as possible. So take a second, spend some time with God, and then we're gonna do what Jesus did with his friends thousands of years ago. Go.

Jesus, I thank you for grace. I thank you for love. I thank you for being the type of friend that doesn't give me what I deserve, but instead of what is what I deserve, god, you give me mercy and grace. So, god, I thank you for all the times that you have loved me even when I've been hard to love.

You've been my friend when everyone else has left. God, I thank you for the truth that I can't outsend your grace because your love for me is not based on me, it's based on you.

So God, in this moment, man, help me to not be the biggest hypocrite in the room. God, would you clean and just forgive me, God, of all the trash that I placed in my life that separates and stresses our friendship.

God, would you help us as families in this moment to take this, God, to remember what you did for us and to not do it lightly, but God, to remember the price of our freedom and the the moment that you paid for it, God, the the ultimate friend,

and help us to celebrate that today. So Jesus, thank you for this. It's in your name. Amen. As

Jesus was sitting there with his friend, he he pulled out a loaf of bread, and he broke some of it off, he handed it to him. And he took it, and he gave it to him, and he said, hey, throughout history, I want you to do this. I want you to take bread. Want I you to eat it together as a family. And I want you to remember what this bread symbolizes.

This is gonna be symbolic of my body that's gonna be broken for you. And as you come together as a family, would you take this bread and eat it and remember that? So as a family, can we take this and eat it, remembering his body that was broken for us?

He then passed a cup around

and he told the disciples, man, you know that forgiveness has to be bought with blood. So in a moment, I'm gonna shed my blood for you. Not only is my body gonna be broken and beaten, but I'm gonna give out everything that I have. My blood is gonna be spilled to buy your freedom, and it's gonna be that payment that you can make, but you don't want to. I'm gonna buy your freedom and set you free

with this sacrifice. So as you take this cup and as you drink it, this is symbolic of the blood that was shed for you. So he said, do this and remember that sacrifice and the payment for your freedom.

Then the coolest thing happened. Dude, in Matthew 26, it says as soon as Jesus did this with his friends, that the disciples all got up together as a family, and they left the house and they worshiped. They celebrated what this they

celebrated the oncoming freedom. I wanna challenge us to do that today. We have a moment right now to get to our feet and to worship what we just celebrated and to thank God for being a friend that's closer than a brother that loves us in spite of who we are. Would you stand and would you worship this God that loves you more than we can ever possibly understand?

Together we sing all I have because of Jesus. All I have because of Jesus.

All this promise

no other fountains I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

But the blood of Jesus. Nothing

Amen.

Will you pray with me?

Lord, we realize that our ransom was paid not with things like silver or gold, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ willingly poured out.

Lord, you are the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world and apart from the blood of Christ, we are hopeless. But God, I thank you that you've shown us that you are the friend of sinners. When you walk this Earth,

Lord, you were rebuked by the Pharisees because you would sit and eat with sinners and you made friends of sinners and you said, I I didn't come for those who are well. I came for the sick and the hurting and the broken. And lord, we all need to realize that we are all sick and hurting and broken apart from you.

And so God, we need you and we thank you, Lord, that you came for us, and you came to walk with us. And so Lord, as we head into this week and into our day today, may you remember lord that we've been bought by the blood of Jesus. Though our sins were scarlet, you have made washed us and made us white as snow.

May we go rejoicing that our savior died for us, gave his life for us, and he's a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

That you'll never leave us and never forsake us and lord, I I just pray lord that we would surrender to your spirit god as you move in our lives and as you convict us of things that don't belong, as you call us out. God, may we humble ourselves before you and experience the abundant grace and mercy through our savior.

And lord, may we look more and more like like you in our friendships and the world around us may see that you are our god, you are our friend, and that they would wanna know you. So Lord, we give you ourselves and all that we are. Let your light shine in our lives. May we walk with our friend and savior today and this week.

We give you all that we are. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. If you need to pray, we have some people up front who would love to pray with you, but we thank you for coming. God bless you, and we'll see you next weekend.