(group cheering) - Whew! Okay, okay, Switch! I can already feel it! Tonight is gonna be
something, something special! My name is Gavin. I get to be the Switch Pastors. And I need you to do
something for me real fast. I need you to look to
the person to your left, left, yeah this way right and here say, "Neighbor." - [Group] Neighbor. - No, not like a robot, like
a human being, like neighbor! - [Group] Neighbor! - I'm glad you're here! - [Group] I'm glad you're here! - Cool, now look to the other way, the other, the right side. Say, friend! - [Group] Friend! - It's gonna be a good night! - [Group] It's gonna be a good night! - It's gonna be a good night. Neighbors, friends, Switch! You already know it's
gonna be a good night. I'm believin' God's gonna
do somethin' incredible. Before we jump into it, we're
gonna play a quick game. What I'm gonna do, is
gonna name one of a duo, and you give me your best guess to who the other partner in that duo is. Famous duos, for example,
start off, this is easy. Batman and-- - [Group] Robin! - Robin, very good! No one messed that up. How about this one, from Nickelodeon? Okay Nickelodeon fans, Drake and-- - [Group] Josh! - Drake and Josh, so good! How about this one? I know you guys have been binge
watching this from Friends. You have Joey and-- - [Group] Chandler! - Chandler, okay, ladies that was for you. Guys were like, I don't know. Pass. Now, from The Office, okay. Okay, you're ready, you're ready. Now this one's kind of tricky, 'cause you can say a few different things, but there's only one right answer. You got Michael Scott and-- - [Group] Dwight Schrute. - Dwight Schrute, that's exactly right! There's some passion in that. I could feel it! How about another one? Woody and-- - [Group] Buzz! - Woody and Buzz! How about you singin'
you got a friend in me? - [Group] You gotta friend in me - Ah come on, it's so good. I can feel it, there is
some song in your voice. ♪ If you got troubles ♪ ♪ I've got 'em too ♪ ♪ There isn't anything
I wouldn't do for you ♪ ♪ We stick together and
can see it through ♪ ♪ 'Cause ♪ - [Group] You got a friend in me! - Ah come on, we're ready! You got a friend in me, absolutely! (group cheering) Absolutely, you got a friend in me. (group applauding) And tonight what I want you to think about is what it actually means to
have a friend, to be a friend. So what are some qualities
you look for in a friend? I actually want you to play back with me? What are some things that you
find admirable in a friend? - [Group Member] Loyalty! - Loyalty, that's a big one, loyalty! What else, what else? Honesty, huh? Sometimes we choose friends
based off of common interests, like you do a lot of the same things. You like the same music. You're really into a
lot of the same things. That's okay. But tonight we're gonna look
at how we choose friends and why we choose friends to see what the Bible has to
say in accordance to that. I want you to recognize, is when you look in our society, we live in a time when we have the ability to be more connected,
globally than ever before. Yet, for some reason, we
seem to be more divided. It's an us versus them kind of mentality. You have black versus white. You have Democrat and Republican. You have Christian. You have non-Christian
you have us versus them. And there's so many things in this world that we try and divide ourselves from, but I think God has something different and something better for all of us. A study was done in Harvard, to say what is one of the
keys to human happiness? I want you to realize this
is is what they found, it's not that shocking. They said it was not wealth. It was not being able to work hard. It was not even fame that
attributed to human happiness. But the big thing was relationships. Relationships. And a number of human
studies were done on this, on both genders, and it points to the positive influence on people, the positive impact of
nurturing relationships on physical and psychological health, has to do with relationships. Okay, great, we just covered that. Here's the staggering part. On the flip side, social rejection in human activities
activates the same part of our brain as does physical pain. Social rejection activates the same part of your brain and my brain
as does physical pain. What you've got to recognize is as a follower of Christ, as someone in part of this world, we have a responsibility to
love the people around us. You know, there's this
really cool news story about a young boy, a six-year old boy who felt in bulled in kindergarten okay. This is kind of sad,
bullied in kindergarten, felt like he couldn't really make friends. So, the next year he
decided to go to school, he decided he was going to
make a shirt for himself, because the way that he felt
was so alone and so sad, he didn't want anyone else
to ever feel that way again. So he made a shirt. It said, "I will be your friend." - [Man] Come on. - I will be your friend. And he wore this to
school on the first day, so that everyone would know, no matter what, no matter
where you come from, I'm here for you, I got your back. It's great, 'cause in a little kid, we can say, that's cool, that's admirable. That so cute, we had some awwws. But somehow we grow up,
and not in a good way, and we lose that attitude and we find that us versus them mentality. That's not what God has for us-- - Come on.
- That's not. - God's best for you and for me. - [Man] Right. - Let me let you in on a little secret. If you and I are 100%
honest with each other, we would be real, on the fact
that we need relationships. God created us for that need. Maybe some of you only need
a few key relationships and others of us, we need
many more relationships. But we all have that
need for relationships. So we're gonna challenge the way we look at being a friend to someone else tonight. Because what I've been
a follower of Christ, isn't about the value
others can add to your life, but about being a friend to others as God has commanded us to in his Word. In his word, absolutely. So we're gonna do right now, is Switch is gonna get a little
bit different, right now. The message is gonna feel
a little bit different, because we're gonna look
at story within a story. A story within a story
and this is something that Jesus actually
answered a religious scholar who had these questions for Jesus. They were always trying to trap him. And it can be found in Luke Chapter 10. And the story goes,
Master, Jesus, Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life? And in Luke, Chapter 10, Jesus replied, "What is the law of Moses say? "How do you read it? The man answered, "You
must love the Lord your God "with all your heart, all your soul, "all your strength and all your mind "and love your neighbor as yourself." "Right," Jesus told the man. "Do this and you'll live." But the religious man,
looking for a loophole, asked Jesus, "Just how would
you define a neighbor?" How would you define a neighbor. So Jesus goes on to tell a story of a man, who is traveling along this road. He was actually mugged. He was mugged, he was beaten
up, all his things were stolen. He was left on the side
of the road for dead. Then what happens? The story goes, a priest comes walking by. When he sees the man, instead of walking towards
him to see if he was okay, it said he cut catty-corner, across the road to
steer clear of that man. Okay, a priest. That's messed up! Wouldn't you say that's messed up? Then another person came by. This one was a Levite. A Levite was supposed to be the good guys, the best of the best of the Jewish people. He walks up, same kind of response, just keeps on goin',
pretends like he doesn't even know that guy exists. And lastly in Jesus' story,
a Samaritan comes by. And to the Jewish people the
Samaritans were despised. They were not friends. They were against us. It was us versus them. He was not supposed to stop
and help the a Jewish man, but that's exactly what he did. He saw him. He saw him where he was at. He saw him in his pain. His heart went out to him. He picked him up, loaded
him on his donkey, took the man to an inn. And you could say, man,
that's pretty awesome. The guy didn't stop there. The Samaritan said, "Hey Mr.
Innkeeper, here's this money. "I'm gonna pay for this
man to become well. "And if he incurs anymore charges, "add it to my bill and I
will pay you when I return." That's lovin' somebody. After Jesus told the story, he asked the religious guy, "Which of these was the best neighbor?" The guy replied, "Well
the one that helped him. "The one that helped him." Jesus said, "Now go and do likewise." And that in itself, is
a really great story. But I'll imagine if Jesus were to tell that same story today, it might look a little bit different. It would go something like this. And as I tell this story I
want you to pay attention and see which person you are, who you identify with, and
we'll talk about it at the end. One day, a kid by the name of Charlie, went to a new school. He was to himself, he didn't know anybody. Every day he walked around,
from class to class, AirPods in, listening to music. He really kept to himself. At first people tried to reach out to him. They tried to get to know him, get to know his story. But Charlie just kind of
wanted to keep his distance. He was a loner. He was okay with being alone. He felt like he didn't need anyone. So eventually people just started to get tired of his attitude. Like, you know what, who is this guy? Maybe he just thinks he's
better than everybody else. So people started to talk
and say stuff about Charlie. One day a group of guys said, "You know what, Charlie's
the perfect kind of a person "to have a little bit of fun with." So they said, "At the end of the day, "we're just gonna beat him up. "It can be good. "We're gonna get video of it. "It could be funny. "No one really cares for him "so were gonna have
some fun with the guy." Word started to get around school that this was gonna happen to Charlie. And a straight-A student hears about this. She hears about Charlie situation, and she thinks to herself, my
classmates are so immature. I cannot believe that they
would do something like this. But her being a straight-A student, being focused first and
foremost on her grades, said, you know what, I gotta
distance myself from this. So she spent all afternoon in the library, so she could study, because to her, getting the best grades, was
the most important thing. The day went on and the
time had finally come for Charlie to get what these guys thought he was going to deserve. He walks to the bathroom. They get him in there. It's just about that time. As everything's about to go down, a Switch student walks
into the bathroom doors. He sees this commotion. He sees guys out with their
phones, ready to press record. In this moment he thinks,
man, I've been gettin' an awful lot of tardies lately. If I get one more tardy, my mom said, I'm gonna be grounded. If I get grounded no phone, no
fun weekend with my friends. I might not even be able to go to Switch. So the switch student
weighs the possibilities, quietly steps out of the bathroom, and hurries up to class. Then the random student
starts makin' that way. But it's too late. The guys grab Charlie. They hit 'em, they
threw him to the ground. They started kicking
him, making him bloody and bruised and embarrassing him. And this random student
walks into the door says, "Hey, cut that out! "Stop, what are you guys doing? "He doesn't deserve this!" As soon as he spoke, it's
like the veils dropped from everyone's eyes and they
scurried out of the bathroom. And this random student
walks over to Charlie, he picks him up, "Man, I'm sorry." He hangs out with him. He gets him cleaned up. He didn't just get him cleaned up and get him home for the rest of the day. Somethin' sticks out to him. He says, you know what, I
need to here for this guy. So slowly, day after day, he starts to build a
relationship and it takes time. But he ends up becoming
friends with Charlie, not just this one time help charity case, but decides to make him a
part of his friend group. And about this time, as we're asking Jesus within the story, and he would ask you,
"Which of these students "was the best neighbor to Charlie?" And the thing is the
answer is quite obvious. But what you gotta recognize, just because it's obvious, doesn't mean we're automatically
gonna do the right thing. There's three lessons
we can learn quickly, from the Good Samaritan, or
this random Switch student. One, friendship is being available. You see we have every opportunity, whether it's in person, at
school in our activities, or online to be available to help those that are there, that are existing, that have needs, that are
hurting or feel lonely on the inside, but sometimes
we get so caught up, so busy with our own
life, our own direction, our own plan of what I need
to achieve to get here, and you could be missing out on the very people God is asking you love and to reach out to. - Come on.
- Come on. - Number two, friendship
is having compassion-- - Right.
- The Good Samaritan. - Didn't just see the man. But he allowed his heart to go out to him. What you gotta recognize about compassion, is this is a quality that
drove Jesus to do everything, from when he walked into a room and saw someone hurting, saw someone sick, he reached out and said, "I can heal you." He said, "Be well." When he walked and saw a widow,
who's son had passed away, Jesus had compassion on her, and he raised her son from the dead. Come on Switch, when Jesus, when Jesus (group applauding) stepped into a place, and
he saw and had compassion. (group cheering) He didn't just have compassion, but he did something about it. With that same compassion,
he fed 5,000 people. See what you gotta recognize Switch, is having compassion is one thing, then doing an action step with
it, is whole nother thing. But that action step is
what leads to the miracles in someone else's life that
God wants you to be a part of. And the third thing, being a friend is meeting
people where they're at. People are messy. They're hurting, they're broken, sometimes bloody and bruised and beaten. They may have a lot of baggage
from past relationships. Maybe they do have a
history of being a gossip, but what you gotta recognize is God's callin' you to
love them where they're at. (group cheering) You see right there, in this story, (group applauding) that's what Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." But he didn't stop there, 'cause Jesus said raised
the bar one step further. He didn't just say, "Love
your neighbor as yourself.", but he said, "You should love people "the way I have loved you." - [Man] Come on! - And the way Jesus loved you and me, is by laying his life down for us. (group cheering) That's what we are called to do Switch. That is what being a Good
Samaritan looks like. And you gotta recognize, that you have the power, just one word, just one positive interaction online, playing video games, commenting on someone else's post, can have so much of an impact
on someone else's life, that you may not fully understand, until you reach heaven one day. (group member shouting) Let's pray. God I thank you for all
of us here in this room. I thank you that we have a purpose, God that we can be a real friend, that we can be available, that we can have compassion and we can meet people where they're at. And right now there's people in this room and everywhere else, watching online, knowing that you can use us. You can use us to make a
difference in other people's life. So God for those of us that
need to have compassion, for those of us who need to remember to be available and look
at the people around us, for those of us that need the boldness to step out and meet
people where they're at, no matter how messy it can be, I pray that you could just
give us that boldness. And for those of us who want me to pray for them right now, raise your hand high in this room. Yeah, there's hands goin'
up all over the place. God I thank you for these
incredible young leaders. God I thank you that they recognize that they have influence and that you can use them where they're at to make a difference, not
just by loving other people, because that's what you tell us to do, but loving other people 'cause
it's what you've showed us, that's who you are. Let us be that reflection. With every head still bowed
and every eye still closed, there's another group of you in this room. Because earlier I asked you to pay attention and see who you felt like you were in the story. And the truth is, that in the
story of the Good Samaritan at some point in our lives, you and I are every single
one of the characters. But what you've got to had to recognize is at one point we were all broken, and in need of a Savior. That's where Jesus comes in. That's where he modeled
what his love looks like. Because his love is
nothing you and I can earn, or it's nothing we deserve. But he gives it to us freely, because his love for us is so big, so grand that we can
barely even comprehend it. But all we have to do is confess with your mouth and believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord and you will be saved and that same love that
rose Christ from the dead is available to you and to me right now. So Switch, in this moment, you've been to Switch before. It could be your first time, but whatever the case,
right now, you're ready. You feel God calling you forward, saying, yes it's your
time and you can feel that welling up inside of you. You don't have to pay attention
to your friend next to you because God's grace is
here and it's available. And it starts with a simple act, and the act is by raising your hand, so for those of you in this room, ready to receive God's grace, his love, his forgiveness and start
a new life with him, raise your hand high, right now. - Thank you so much for
joining us here at Switch. We hope you're inspired
by what you just watched and we would love to
help you take a next step in your faith journey. Some great resources
can be found right here. In addition to that, we'd love for you to be part of our community. so subscribe to our YouTube channel. Follow us on social and until then, hope you have a great week. (soft music)
