GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

#RelationshipGoals: God's Edition

Christian Martin

Heidi Martin

01 Rock-Solid Love: Starting with Christ First

02 From Squad to Soulmate: The Power of Godly Friendship

03 Love Without Regrets: Boundaries that Bless

04 Talk it Out: God’s Way to Handle Love & Drama

05 From Dating to Destiny: Preparing for Forever

It's good to have you here with us once again for our second session.

In our first session, we talked about rock-solid love starting with Christ first, and we explored how starting with Jesus changes everything.

Because before you can love others well, You need to let Jesus love you first.

And something we're going to do first, before we go any further, is simply share with you our names so you can know who you're talking to.

I'm Heidi, for those of you who weren't here the first time.

Christian, Heidi Martin, and we have been married for nearly 25 years, and we're here to share with you our journey, lessons that we've learned along the way, knowing that it made a difference in our life, in our relationship.

And in our last session, we spoke about the importance, the foundational importance of having that first relationship with Christ.

And now, for our current session, we're going to talk about the topic from squad to soulmate, the power of godly friendship.

But first, let's pray to the 1 who is love, the 1 who is the way, the truth, and the life, the 1 who wants to be the center of our love life.

So let's pause and let's pray together as we begin.

Our Father in heaven, Lord, how thankful we are that as we enter into a phase of our life when we are asking very deep and personal and serious questions about ourselves and about others that you are not the God who just stands aloof and at a distance and just watches us try to figure things out on our own.

Thank you for being a God who wants to be very intimate and close to the things that matter to us the most.

And we pray, Lord, that you would do so right now just draw near to us.

We want your presence to fill this Place we want to have ears that will listen not to anything Heidi and I share but above all to listen to that still small loving voice that wants to give us comfort and peace and confidence to know that our life is safe in your hands.

So bless us now as we talk about these things pertaining to life and relationships.

Speak to us Lord and we thank you in Jesus name, amen.

So whether it's here at GYC or back at home, we all have our circle.

You have your squad, the people you vibe with and actually enjoy being around.

But most, And most of our friend groups, obviously, are a mix of guys and girls that we meet.

And some of our friendships maybe even go back to when we were kids.

But the real question is, how do you move from being just friends to finding your person, the 1 who could become your soulmate?

You know, Jean de La Fontaine, a 17th century French poet, said, once wrote, Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.

We can't just put them all together and say, friends, friends, we got friends.

But within that circle of friendships, there's different types of friendships.

So first, you have your acquaintances, people you recognize and have brief surface-level interactions with, like a neighbor, a co-worker, someone you see in the line for the food at GYC that you bumped into, maybe even friends on your social media.

And so, and so those are, are often many in our lives as we go through life and enjoy getting to meet people.

Another type of friend are Casual, casual friends.

Casual friends are the friends that you enjoy spending time with, not merely because they're an acquaintance, but you know a little bit more about them, and therefore, because you've been acquainted with them, you now want to spend time with them.

And you go beyond small talk to sharing slightly more personal information.

You're opening up a little bit more, a little bit more.

And 1 thing about GYC is being able to come back to GYC and be able to meet up with those that you've met in previous GYCs.

For how many of you this is not your first GYC?

How many of you have been to previous GYCs?

And I'm sure that you're meeting up with people that, hey, it's good to see you again because you met them last year.

And then you have your next level of friendship, and that's close friends.

These are people you trust, you care about deeply, and you offer emotional support to, and they offer it back to you.

They actually will invest time in you, give you their undivided attention, even in the middle of the day when you call them say hey, I need something.

Yep, and then you got your shall we say intimate friends intimate friends These are the ones that we call confidants confidants confidants confidants a very high Level of trust it's it's It's more than just your close friends, even, because there's an emotional connection.

That's what lies at the center of the characteristic of intimate friends.

And you share your deepest thoughts and feelings with them.

They're never left to just kind of guess what's going on in your mind.

They know because they've come to know you that intimately.

And usually, usually you have a handful of intimate friends, all right?

Oh, the numbers start getting a little lesser as they get more intimate for obvious reasons, right?

And, but these few intimate friends are very special, special friends.

So those are the 4 different types of friendships that you can have, and everyone has people in their lives that fit into each 1 of those categories to some degree.

As you look at these types of friends, acquaintances, casual friends, close friends, intimate friends, and I'm almost certain that all of you, if not most of you, are already in your mind putting names to all these categories, right?

Oh yeah, that's Timmy, oh that's Bob, oh that's Susan right there.

You know, you're just starting to do that.

And as you do, Truth be told, that each 1 of these categories can include friends of that type that are both good, have good influence, and not so good influence.

But that happens just about with anybody, anywhere, any time.

Whether you're going to an Adventist university or whether you're going to your community college, it doesn't matter.

Don't think that because you're going to go to an Adventist University, you're gonna be in this bubble of just people that are just potentially awesome, good, intimate friends, that will have this great positive, good influence in your life.

You find this in all places, but you get the point.

The people that you choose to be around will shape your lives in big ways.

And from a biblical perspective, we can think of Ecclesiastes 9, verse 5, where it tells us that 2, 2 are better than 1.

And you know, at the end of the day, we could all agree that life gets easier and richer when you're surrounded by friends.

And of course, just as much as there's different types of friends, there's also different types of personalities.

So when we're talking about trying to meet the person that we want to be with for the rest of our lives, I think personality matters.

And so we decided in this seminar we are going to give you a five-minute personality test.

So the papers have been passed out, pens have been passed out.

If you did not, are there, okay, where are my people that were passing out?

OK, at the back we have, if you need a 5 minute personality test, hands up.

OK, because some people were coming in and they didn't get 1.

If you need only a pen, please put your hand, show us a number 1.

A pen and a paper, raise a 1 in your hand, I guess.

Series

#RelationshipGoals: God's Edition

02 From Squad to Soulmate: The Power of Godly Friendship

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Evening Devotions with Jermaine Gayle

A Costly Enterprise

1h 43m

The War for Your Mind

02 How to Avoid Deception

47m

God's Invisible Plan

05 God’s Invisible Plan, I’ll Serve Him Forever

59m

GYC 2012 Seminar: Power to Change the World - Jesus, Arabic, and Kale

Strategy Vs. Steamrolling: Cross-Cultural Witnessing

1h 14m

The War for Your Mind

01 The Real Cost of Social Media

49m

GYC 2008 Plenary Sessions

For What Purpose?

56m

The Most Fulfilling Life

02 Cultivating Contentment: Discovering Fulfillment Through Gardening

55m

Communication That Carries Us Through

1h 5m

Religious Liberty Teetering on the Edge

05 Should There be Free Speech in the Church?

50m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Most Important Book Outside of the Bible - A Deeper Look at The Great Controversy

02-Lessons From the Church in the Wilderness and the Reformation

1h

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Sanctuary: How Sinners Can Safely Approach a Holy God

06-Other Aspects of the Sanctuary (Lamp, Table)

58m

GYC 2008 Plenary Sessions

The Paralysis Which Besets Us

56m

Sound Doctrine