Friendships Built of Truth & Humility | Crossroads Students

My name is Jason. I'm a great liar. One of the best in the world at lying. I'm a terrible actor. I'm not very good at like giving false compliments, but my whole life I believed a lie. And that was that lying is better than telling the truth. And it's just not true. It's just not true. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. I can prove it to you. I can name four movies off the top of my head that if they would just tell the truth from the beginning of the movie, there literally wouldn't be a movie at all. Take frozen. For example, any frozen fans out there. Do you want to build a snowman? I do not, but I have two daughters. So I've seen frozen all the time in, in that whole movie, the whole movie, the whole point of the whole movie was Elsa was hiding and lying to Ana about her magical powers. And at the end of the movie, you know what we realized that Elsa needed Ana to know about her powers, to support her in it. Ana literally had to die. By the end of the movie, she comes back to life. Sorry about the spoilers. And thanks to you, that's over now. And you've ruined that for me. For Elsa understand that it's good to let people into the truth. One of my favorite movies growing up, Aladdin, Aladdin, the whole movie, the genie is literally looking at Aladdin. Dude, stop building up this lie to try and impress this girl. Stop pretending you're a prince. Stop pretending all these things. He had three magical wishes and he still couldn't land the girl. You know what? Landed the girl in the end. The truth. I remember the genie literally looks at Lennon and says, tell her the truth. And it lands like, I can't do it. I cannot do it. Every Shrek, all Shrek had to do was tell Fiona the truth. All Fiona had to do was tell Shrek the truth, but they ended up getting a little short guy or Farquaad got in the mix and

everything went downhill. I mean, better ending to the story. Don't get me wrong, but it could have been over so much sooner if they just told the truth. But you and I don't believe that. We don't believe that we can trust the world with the truth. And so we feel like we have to protect ourselves and we tell lies. Now hear me clearly. Telling a lie a lot of times is always easier in the moment. It costs way more in the end, but it's always easier in the moment to just tell a small little tiny good intentioned lie. But is that what we're supposed to do? Is that what's best for us? Is that what's best for you and for me to lie? What about in our friendships? We're in this series called Core Memories, talking about all the core memories of our friendships. Is that the best strategy for you to just put on a face, put on an act, put on a show, put on a filter and just lie? Like is it okay if your friends know what's really going on in your life? Is it okay if your friends know that you don't like something that they're actually really into? And can you still be friends in that? Or you can have to fake it for years until the truth finally comes out. Like you have to go to constant concerts of a band that you can't stand just because at one point you told a small little lie and said, Oh, I love that band. No, no, no, no. There's a better way. There's a so much better way. And what about dude when your friends actually say something that hurts your feelings? What about when there's conflict between you and your friends? Can the truth really be the best option? We hear about this in the Bible. The Bible is our source of truth around here. This is truer than our thoughts, feelings, or emotions. And we can look to the Bible about how to handle all of these situations.

Jesus is teaching his disciples and the people around him how to handle conflict between another person. And this is what he says to him. He says, if your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault just between the two of you. And if they listen to you, you've won them back over. What is Jesus trying to say here? He's trying to say, Hey, the truth is better. The lie is easier. The truth is better. Why is that true? Like I know there's plenty of students probably sit in the seats. Maybe it's not you, but it's the person beside you that you're like, dude, that cannot be true. It cannot be. right strategy for me to always just tell the truth. Is that really the best option? I'll say it's the best option because it's exactly how God handles conflict between me and you. And so if you're cool with this, we're gonna jump into the deep end, the deep end of our relationship with God. The crazy thing about the promise of a relationship with God isn't that Jesus will meet you one time and change your life and leave you forever. No, no, no, it's the promise that you and I can have an active, ongoing, in this moment right now, relationship with the creator of the universe. That the person who created it all wants to be with you today in this moment. And there's these things called sins, which are just grievances between us. They're things that we do that are wrong. And those things can get in the way

of that relationship between us and God. And so when Jesus is talking about this, he's promising us a better way, a way of truth. And so we're gonna go really deep into this part of the Bible, and I wanna explain to you why it's the best option. Are you ready for it? All right, John 16, here's what it says. It says, nevertheless, I tell you the truth. Okay, thank you, Jesus, for telling me the truth. I appreciate that a lot. It is to your advantage, okay, what's to my advantage, Jesus, that I, Jesus, go away. What? Pause, Jesus is literally there in the flesh. They can see and touch God. And Jesus is saying, it's better that I go away. How could it possibly be better? Let's keep reading. It's better that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper, new character, we'll talk about him in a second, will not come to you. So Jesus is saying, hey, God the Father sent me, and now I'm gonna go away, and I'm gonna send God the helper to you. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. One of the names of the Holy Spirit is helper. Okay, so he keeps going. He says, I will send him to you, and when he comes, he'll do this amazing thing for you.

It's to your advantage. It's the best thing for you. He will convict the world concerning sin. What? Why is that better? Why is that the better solution? I think it's because what Jesus is saying in this moment right now, that the best thing for you is not for God to lie to you, say, hey, everything's good with us. We're fine. We got no problems. We got issues. You're perfect. You didn't lie to your mom the other day. You didn't steal that thing. That wouldn't hurt our relationship. No, the best thing for us is the truth. It's to know that there's a better way to live, and the better way to live is not to do all the things the easy way, the way that we feel like doing it. The better way to live is to live like Jesus. And he proves it. He goes on and he keeps saying this. When the, another name for the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will guide us into all truth. And then so he keeps going. He says, so you will have sorrow now,

but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will be able to take your joy from you. He keeps going and he says, hey, we have this right relationship. If the Holy Spirit comes and tells you all the things between us and we deal with those things, this is the relationship you and I will have. In that day, you will ask nothing from me because you already have everything. He says, truly, truly I say to you, whatever you ask for of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. You see, the promise of Jesus is that the truth is the best for us because that is the type of relationship he wants to have with us. A real relationship, not a relationship based on lies, not a relationship based on flattery, not a relationship based on how we're feeling in the moment, but a true relationship. And when you have that type of relationship, dude, you can ask for anything and you get, you have literally everything that you need. You have abundant joy. When you don't have that truthful relationship, you don't. There've been plenty of seasons in my life where I've lied even to God. I told you I'm a great liar. And I would pretend with God like everything was good. I was gonna pretend with God that I didn't look at that thing the other day, or I didn't steal that thing,

or I didn't say that hurtful thing. And I would show up to God like, hey God, don't you love me? And you know what would happen? The first thing I would think of is that spirit of truth inside of me would bring to my attention the things that I had sinned against, the people that I had hurt. And so because of that, I got to confess those things, be healed of those things, and get back into a true relationship with God. And if God can do that for you and for me, shouldn't we be doing that for our friends? Like, shouldn't you and I? I'd be able to walk up to our friends and say, hey, I know you were joking around, but when you said that thing to me, it hurt. Like, I have this insecurity that I have not been truthful about with you, and you really hurt my feelings. And honestly, I'm afraid to come around you now because I'm afraid you're gonna keep saying mean things to me in jest. Like, I want that relationship. I wanna be able to look at a friend and say, hey, dude, I love you so much. If you need anything, I will be there for you. And I actually wanna show up and tell the truth in that, instead of just lying, and tell them what they wanted to hear. And so here's what I wanna give you.

I wanna give you three ways that truth inside of a relationship, your relationship with your friends, your people that you're making core memories with in the world, three ways that truth can actually lead to an abundant, joy-filled friendship, instead of just fake flattery. Here are the three things. Truth is loving. I believe this is probably true for you. It's definitely true for me. I don't wanna be just told all the things I wanna hear. I wanna be told the things that I need to hear. And truth is the thing that I always need to hear. Have you ever forgot to put deodorant on? And like, you were totally nose-blind to it, right? Like, you're just used to your smell. Like, maybe you went to camp, and you're just like, I can't smell anything, I'm good. But then your friend walks up and is like, dude, you have a crush, and you're about to go talk to her, and you smell like onions left out in the sun. You smell like Shrek poop. You smell disgusting. Like, that's not what you wanted to necessarily hear in the moment, but it's what you needed to hear because your camp crush was right there.

You almost ruined your shot. Truth is so important. It's not always easy to hear, but it's so important, and it can lead to an incredibly loving relationship between your friends. Number two, truth is good news. Actually, it's one of my favorite things about truth, because truth doesn't have to be these things that are really hard to hear. Truth can be positive, encouraging things that you never even saw in yourself. This one time I was having an interview, and I was really nervous going into the interview, to be honest with you. Like, I was like, I don't really feel like I'm qualified for this job. I'm not sure I'm gonna get it. Like, I wasn't even almost taking the interview very seriously. I had a friend call me right before I had the interview, and he called me up, and he was like, hey, dude, I just wanna let you know, you are perfect for that job. Dude, I think you would crush it in that role. I know it's more responsibility than you've ever had. I know it's more of a leadership position than you've ever had, but you would be amazing in that role.

That job was working at Crossroads, and I took that job, and maybe I would've tanked the interview, maybe I would've crushed the interview, but what I do know is I had a friend speak truth to me, and it totally changed how I approached that interview. Truth can be positive, encouraging. You can look at your friend and say, hey, I feel so loved around you. I feel so encouraged around you. I love the way that you're kind to people around you. It makes me wanna be more kind. I love the way that you just forgive somebody just like that, dude. It fires me up and inspires me to forgive others around me way more quickly than I normally would. The third thing that truth can do for your friendships is it can lead to depth. My guess is is that you are not interested in more acquaintances, more surface-level friends, more names in your phone, more Xbox Live friends. You probably don't need more of those, but you probably are craving it. From the bottom of your heart is depth. You want real friends who are really gonna be there for you, and if you want a whole bunch of acquaintances, all you gotta do is super simple, just lie. Just tell them you're TikTok famous. Just tell them your dad is this famous actor or actress.

Tell them all these fake stories about really cool things that you've done. You could do that. You could lie. I did that for a long time. I told you I was a great liar. You know what it turned into me having? Zero real friends. I was so alone because I was scared to be real with people. I was scared to tell the truth to my closest friends, but dude, if you tell the truth, you might not have a million followers on all the line, on the line things, social medias, anything like that. You might not have a million followers, but what you will have is real friends, and actually, that's what Jesus wants with you. Jesus wants depth in your relationship with him, and that only comes by bringing your true self to him, and so for you and me, for our friends, we've gotta stop just telling people what they wanna hear. We've gotta lean into the truth, and if there's a problem with somebody in your friendship, you can ignore it forever. You can just pretend like that person isn't mean to you. You can pretend like they didn't hurt your feelings, or you could say, hey, this is an acquaintance right now, and maybe just. A little bit of truth will get us to a friendship, and I need more friends. And if Jesus did it for me, he sent the helper to tell me exactly what's in between us having a deeper relationship in God, then maybe you and I need to do the exact same thing today.

Can we be bold enough, vulnerable enough, real enough to tell the truth?