Joy of Good Friends

All right, really quick shout out as we kick this message off to Heath, who spoke last week.

Heath Arthur spoke for the very first time last Sunday.

Did a great job.

Did a great job.

I've got to know Heath over the last few years, especially the last uh nine months to a year.

I've got to know him really well, really respect him.

He's been part of our church for a long time.

And he kind of undersold himself a little bit, I feel like.

Okay, I was out of town, I was watching online, I was on a 10-minute delay.

I tried to be live, but then I got behind, so but I was I was with you guys.

And you know, Heath talked about being a comedian, he is a comedian.

He's I think he's funny.

I might be funnier, but it's more like it's kind of a personal taste thing, you know what I mean?

But he's he's funny.

But Heath is not just a comedian, he's hysterical, by the way.

He's Heath's awesome.

But he's also, he didn't talk about this, he's also a really successful actor, okay?

Heath's in a lot of, especially in commercials, and this is the cool thing about Heath.

He's found this niche, and I think it's like the coolest job in the world.

Heath has been in a bunch of commercials with Peyton Manning, and he always gets cast to be Peyton Manning's mean friend.

So I want you to think about this.

Heath gets paid to insult Peyton Manning.

Like that's his job.

Think about how cool and Peyton Manning's like a super lovable guy.

Like, even if you're not a football fan, he's in a bunch of commercials, he's like, I know something about him, I like him.

But Heath gets to make fun of him and he gets paid money to do it.

It's really cool.

And so I didn't ask Heath's permission for this.

Sorry, Heath, but uh give me 20 seconds.

I want to show you 20 seconds of Heath being mean to Peyton Manning.

Okay?

So here we go.

Roll it.

This is Heath Heath.

Way too much of it.

Cookie anymore.

I used to bring the same cookies to training camp every year.

Yeah?

Do you used to dance for them too?

Always.

Wow.

What a jerk that guy is.

What a jerk.

In real life, he's super nice.

He's never been like that with me at all.

Um, but thank Heath, honestly, thank you for uh for speaking last week.

Heath got us back into a series that we were in before Easter.

We started this a few months ago called Unbreakable Joy.

We've been going through the book of Philippians.

And if you're not familiar, Philippians is a letter in the New Testament.

It was written by the Apostle Paul, written to a church at a place called Philippi.

And the amazing thing about Philippians is that it is basically a blueprint for how to live with joy in your life.

And in many ways it shouldn't be, because when Paul wrote it, he's in prison.

He's in a dire situation, he's facing possible execution.

Eventually, he will be executed.

He's martyred because of his faith and his unwillingness to relent in spreading the news about Jesus.

But Philippians is not Paul bemoaning his situation.

It's not even him begging people to please support him and pray for him in his tough time.

It's filled with gratitude and joy.

And you, if you didn't know the circumstances, you'd think that the person riding it was in the best place they'd ever been in life.

There's a kind of joy that we can have through following Jesus that is unbreakable.

Nothing can stop it.

It is not based on your circumstances, it's not based on everything going well, it is not based on life cooperating with you.

It's at a higher level.

The Holy Spirit gives us that.

Paul had that, and Paul teaches us how to have it too.

So we've looked at a lot of different aspects of joy and how to find joy.

And today what we're gonna talk about is the joy of good friends.

The joy of good friends.

Like I said, I didn't know that last song was gonna talk about the wonder of the friendship we have with God, and that's very important.

So keep that in your mind.

But today is the joy of good friends.

Let me open up Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

We're gonna read verses 19 through 30.

And I'm just reading from our mobile app.

If you have that, you can use it to follow along anytime.

It says, if the Lord Jesus is willing, I hope to send Timothy to you soon for a visit.

Then he can cheer me up by telling me how you're getting along.

I have no one else like Timothy, who genuinely cares about your welfare.

All the others only care for themselves and not for what matters to Jesus Christ.

But you know how Timothy has proved himself like a son with his father.

He has served with me in preaching the good news.

I hope to send him to you just as soon as I find out what's going to happen to me here.

And I have confidence from the Lord that I myself will come to see you soon.

Meanwhile, I thought I should send Epaphroditus back to you.

He's a true brother, co-worker, and fellow soldier.

He was your messenger to help me in my need.

I'm sending him because he's been longing to see you, and he was very distressed that you heard he was ill.

And he certainly was ill, in fact, he almost died.

But God had mercy on him and also on me, so that I would not have one sorrow after another.

So I'm all the more anxious to send him back to you, for I know you'll be glad to see him, and you'll not be so worried about, and he will not be so worried about you.

Welcome him in the l with the Lord's love and with great joy, and give him the honor that people like him deserve, for he risked his life for the work of Christ, and he was at the point of death while doing for me what you couldn't do from far away.

In this section of the letter, Paul addresses two specific people, Timothy and Epaphroditus, and they're friends.

And he gives us a window into what his life was like and some of the friendships that he had.

And what we see through this and through some other scripture that we're going to look at is this approach to friendship and understanding of what does what does true friendship look like from a biblical perspective.

I think we can all agree that that friends matter.

Having them in general matters.

If you've ever been in a season of life, maybe you're there now where you just don't feel like you have friends.

That is one of the hardest things you can ever experience.

As a kid, I moved a lot, and I'm grateful for my experience.

My childhood was wonderful.

I'm not complaining about it.

So, mom and dad, if you're watching, I'm not complaining.

They live in Missouri.

But we moved a lot.

So I moved, man, I went to uh three schools in seventh grade.

No, I went to two schools in seventh grade, three schools in eighth grade, three schools in tenth grade.

That was what it was.

So, and it's all it was fine.

If I hadn't done all that, I wouldn't be where I am today.

I promise you that.

In fact, the last school I landed at's where I met my wife, and where I met a guy that helped me grow in my faith to the point where I understood what I was supposed to do in life, and he's the reason I work here.

So, great things.

But moving that much, I frequently found myself in positions where I didn't really have friends, especially at those middle school, early high school years.

Like I was, I didn't have much of a social calendar because I didn't know anybody.

That was tough.

Friendship, it's so important.

In fact, the gentleman who started our church, Steve Craig, he and his wife Susan started our church almost 20 years ago, yeah, 20 years ago now, and then in our building 20 years ago next year, Steve was a really successful businessman, great guy, still a really good friend, definitely one of the top two pastors in the history of our church, easily top two.

And so, Steve, uh Steve tells this story a lot, and it's always stuck with me, where when he was young, working at this really large company, a Fortune 500 company, he got identified along with a lot of other guys as potential young executives.

And so basically they had this way of identifying guys they saw a lot of potential in, and they brought them in and they said, Hey, if if you guys do this, if you do this well, you have a high ceiling here.

And this was a big deal, huge company.

And on the very first day of their young executive training program, the CEO of this company came in, huge financial company.

And this guy has his first talk with all of them, and he didn't talk about working harder, he didn't talk about putting in the extra hours, he talked about friends.

What he actually told them was much of your success at this company will depend on who you choose to be friends with.

If you choose to be friends with the people who complain all the time, with the guys who who talk bad about their bosses and roll their eyes every time the boss walks in, the guys who every single time you're out to lunch, you're just bad mouthing the company and the way things are going, if you choose to be friends with them, you will not go far.

But if you choose to be friends with people who are positive, if you choose to be friends with people who who are going after it, who inspire you, friends who can even challenge you and hold you accountable, you will succeed.

The very first thing the CEO talks about is the kind of friends that people choose.

Friendship matters.

Not only does friendship matter, but but friendship, it's a vulnerable thing.

Like your friends can can hurt you deeply.

You let them close.

I mean, friendship is it's super important.

And as we get older, not only is friendship important, not only is friendship kind of dangerous in a way, it's it's vulnerable, we have to be careful, but friendship gets harder.

I want us to do a little exercise, if you don't mind.

It's some mental time travel, if you're willing to do this.

Some of us have to travel back further than others.

Got to work a little harder.

But I want you to try to think back to the first person that you would have called your best friend.

Not a cousin or a brother, family member, but like early school days, maybe.

The first person you're like, that was my best friend.

Try to try to get that person in your mind.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you still know that person today?

Wow, that's crazy.

I have no idea where mine is.

It was many states ago, long way.

So mine was Bryce Johnson.

Shout out to Bryce if he would for any reason ever stumble across this.

Uh Bryce Johnson, kindergarten, Springfield, Missouri.

Went to, I went to Disney Elementary School.

Disney.

Yeah, Walt Disney was from my hometown.

It was a really old rundown elementary school.

It was not, there were no rides, it wasn't exciting.

You hear that, you're like, wow, no, it was just an old John.

I I bet that school's not even in operation anymore, but it was named after Walt Disney because he's from that area.

So uh Disney Elementary, Bryce Johnson, and here was what made Bryce my best friend.

Three things.

He liked ninja turtles.

He liked baseball.

He liked basketball.

That is that was it.

Six years old, I'm like, you like ninja turtles?

Baseball, basketball?

We are best friends.

We're basically the same person.

Right?

It was that, it's that easy when you're a kid.

Sometimes friends, I've watched my kids make friends, and they'll just walk up and be like, Will you be my friend?

Yes.

Wow.

And they're friends, and that works.

As we get older, friendship becomes a little bit more complicated.

I'm sure we've all had this scenario where we meet someone, we think we're gonna be friends with them, and it's going well, and then all of a sudden we learn something, and some interaction happens, like, oh, I don't think we're friends.

And you gotta figure out how to get out of that.

That's tough.

Friendship is important, it's vulnerable, and sometimes it's complicated.

But scripture gives us principles for what true good friendship looks like.

And if we can follow these, understand these, and apply these to our lives and take advantage of the opportunities around us as a church, I really do believe this, then we can experience the joy like Paul has, where even in difficult situations, you have good friends.

I want to start by looking at what Paul says about Timothy.

It says in Philippians chapter 2, verse 20, I have no one else like Timothy who genuinely cares about your welfare.

Philippians 2:20

All the others care only for themselves and not for what matters to Jesus Christ.

He he says, Timothy's different.

Timothy's unique.

Timothy is genuine.

He's genuine.

A lot of other people, Paul says, they have ulterior motives.

You know that they're just looking out for themselves, but not Timothy.

He he genuinely cares about people and about the Lord.

A true friend is genuine.

And you need genuine friends around you.

I hope you have them.

How do you know if your friends are genuine?

Well, there's a lot of different ways.

One way would be to examine what the opposite of that would be.

So if you have a disingenuous friend, that would be someone who's not genuine.

That word disingenuous, it means not sincere, but rather pretending.

So if someone is disingenuous, they're not sincere, they're pretending.

Every time they talk, they've they've got some motive in the back of their mind.

Sometimes it might be really nice to you because it benefits them in that moment to be so, but in another situation, that goes out the window.

When you're not around, they might talk very differently about you because they're not genuine.

But Paul describes Timothy as genuine.

Do you have genuine friends?

And how do you know that?

In my experience, the easiest way for me to have learned who my genuine friends are is do I have people who are willing to tell me what I do not want to hear?

Do I have people in my life who are willing to be honest with me and tell me, Justin, I love you, but I think you're off.

Now, obviously, as a pastor, I'm not off.

So that doesn't happen.

I mean, have you guys ever heard a story of a pastor being off at all about anything?

Like that's even that would make the news.

Like, pastor wrong?

Yeah, that's never a thing.

Uh no, man, I'm wrong so much.

I have a lot of ideas.

I'm a I've always been like an idea person, but a lot of them are bad ideas.

How many of you are idea people?

You have lots of ideas.

You can raise your hands.

Yeah.

Okay.

If you're married to that person or good friends with that person, you know that most of them are bad.

And someone who just comes up with ideas, very often, there's a cool idea.

Let's put that to the side and not do it.

And so I very often have this experience where I have an idea and I'm excited about it.

And I want to talk to people about it.

And over the years I've learned, and often I learned this the hard way, but I've learned that man, when I have an idea, I'm really excited about it.

And if it's big, like it would affect my family, it would affect our church in a big way.

I need to run that by some people.

And if they don't seem excited, if they're like, huh, you know, interesting.

If I hear interesting from my my wife, for example, that's interesting.

Well, then I know, okay, something's off.

I'll give you an example.

About seven years ago, I was just kind of frustrated at where we were at as a church.

And uh, very opposite of where we're at now, and it wasn't because of growth or anything like that.

Sometimes when you lead an organization, I've been here 18 years.

And when you lead an organization, I've been leading it for 11, but when you've been part of something for a long time, sometimes it just feels stagnant.

Many of you understand that, right?

It just you want something to change because you're just sort of, it feels routine, it feels mundane at times.

And so I was in this mode where I just I needed something to happen.

So I got this idea that I was gonna change the name of our church.

Okay?

Ah, here, hold, I didn't do it, okay.

I already gave that away.

So we're his hands church.

But this was my frustration back in the day, is the founding pastor Steve, top two pastor in our history, he someone say second.

But I didn't say that.

Uh, Steve's awesome.

He's he's in many ways, Steve is my hero.

Like, Steve would always teach on the tree of life.

Not about hands.

Never heard Steve give a message about hands.

We're called his hands, but his messages were always about the tree of life.

And if you've been here for a while, you've heard a tree of life message.

We have all these paintings of the tree of life everywhere because an artist who goes here named Marlon heard the tree of life message that Steve gave, got inspired to paint these trees, and so these trees became our symbol, and so we're his hands church, and just trees everywhere.

And then that like trickled down to our youth and our kids because we have the we have the garden, that's our youngest kids.

Then they go to the greenhouse and then the grove and then the tree house, and but we're his hands.

So I was like, we should be tree of life church.

That should be our name.

So I met with some friends about it.

And I was like, I think we're gonna change the name of the church.

They're like, really?

I said, yeah, because you know it's like hands, but we don't have hands anywhere, we have trees everywhere.

So we should be tree of life.

And I got a lot of, huh.

And a really good, really good guy that I met with named Stephen, we were having breakfast, and I told him this, and I was excited, and he muted in his response.

And he said, Man, I just I think you're underestimating how much the name means to those of us who've been part of this for a long time.

And I think you're underestimating even the reputation that we have as a church and how it would sort of feel if we just it would almost be like throwing away where we've been.

I don't think we need to do that.

And I was, he was right.

All the people who were not excited about my idea were right.

So I prayed about it more, and what I realized is okay, we're his hands, and we're a tree of life church.

And if it basically means Jesus and not a bunch of man-made religion.

And I was like, well, maybe there will be other tree of life churches one day.

Maybe one day we'll be his hands and we'll have partnerships with other churches, or even help start other churches, or help support other churches.

And they they're like us, and there'll be this whole network of tree of life churches, but we're his hands.

So I asked Marlin if he would paint a painting of hands holding a tree of life.

And he did that, and it's hanging on our walls now.

And then Matt and some other artists that are like graphic artists, they took that.

Matt's our worship, I always point to like if like Matt, he was here a minute ago.

Uh Beanie, Matt, guitar.

Does this with his fingers a lot?

You know what I'm talking about, Matt?

And so he took that and he created the logo that we have, which is these hands holding a tree of life, and so kind of came together.

But I I would have just made a really sudden, out-of-nowhere, knee-jerk reactions, major change, just because I was feeling like something needed to change.

I just needed something to happen.

And good friends, genuine friends, loved me enough to tell me they thought I was wrong.

And I'm grateful for that.

Do you have people in your life, friends, who are genuine enough to tell you that they don't agree with you, that they think you're off.

And if you if you have that, don't be mad when they do.

But be grateful, because it's a it's a blessing.

In fact, the book of Proverbs, okay, chapter 27, verse 6, says, wounds from a sincere friend, right?

Genuine, sincere.

Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.

It is better to have friends who will tell you what you don't want to hear than to have people who just butter you up.

Often those are not your friends.

So honor that.

Value that in a friend.

Someone who can be genuine enough to tell you when they don't agree with you.

And maybe you even need to tell some of your friends, hey, you have permission to do that.

Like give them permission.

Hey, I want you to tell me if you disagree with me.

That's important.

And as a friend, be that.

Be genuine.

Be honest.

Be willing to tell your friends, hey, I love you, but I think this is a mistake.

I don't think this will go the way you think it'll go.

Be a genuine friend and value that.

Find those.

Number two, I want us to look at Epaphroditus.

In Philippians 2, verse 25, Paul said, Meanwhile, I thought I should send Epaphroditus back to you.

Philippians 2:25

He is a true brother, coworker, and fellow soldier.

He was your messenger to help me in my need.

So Epaphroditus, kind of an interesting backstory here.

He's likely the person that delivered the letter.

I mean, almost certainly the person who delivered the letter of Philippians to the Philippians, right?

So Paul wrote it in prison, gave it to Epaphroditus.

Epaphroditus brought it back.

Epaphroditus was sent by the church at Philippi to help Paul.

Roman prison was very different than our concept of prison today.

Prison's always been prison.

It's been bad, a bad experience.

I have many friends who have gone through that, and it's not a good thing.

But in a I don't think anyone would trade American prison for Roman prison.

For example, in Roman prison, you are not provided meals, maybe at the most basic level.

But you are responsible for still providing for yourself.

Like if you needed people to send you money to buy your own food, that's the way it worked.

And so the church at Philippi, they hear that Paul's in prison, and that's what they're doing with Apaphroditis.

They ram, they raise support, they send it with Apaphroditus to help to help pay for Paul to live.

So Epaphroditus comes and he stays with Paul, he gets sick, and he doesn't want to leave.

And Paul has to make him go.

He's like, You almost died.

Go home.

Tell them how I'm doing, and I'll make sure they know you didn't quit.

So he makes sure to write in there, hey, Paphroditus, he he did his job.

He's great, he's awesome.

Please receive him back.

Know that he did well.

And I think Epaphroditus, he lets us know about this other amazing quality of a true friend, a good friend, a friend that can bring joy to your life.

They're not just genuine, they're present.

They're there, they show up.

Good friends are there.

Man, I experienced this yesterday in a really cool way.

It's amazing how sometimes the message will write itself in life.

I'm grateful to that.

Lord, I'm grateful for that, but stop sometimes too.

Like, you know, every once in a while.

Just a week that could go normal.

But when something bad happens or challenging happens, it's material for the message.

So I'm grateful for it.

But honestly, God, enough.

No, I'm teasing.

So yesterday, really interesting day yesterday.

Okay, let me give some background to this, okay?

Because this is at least big for me.

And shout out on the front end to two amazing friends, Todd and Ashley, two of the closest friends I've ever had in my entire life.

They're amazing.

So some of you might know this.

I have a son who plays basketball.

Okay.

Ha ha ha ha, it's like a running joke.

I say it too much.

But it's true.

And so this weekend, there's a there's a coach in in Warner Robbins who's putting this kind of super team together.

And these some of these boys have played together at different moments, but he wanted to put them in this tournament, play them up a year.

And so we did that yesterday, and just shout out to my boys' team.

They beat a top five team in the state by 30 points yesterday.

They're really good.

Yeah, they're good.

I mean, I'm just saying, they're good.

We're sorry.

So win the games yesterday.

And normally the way it works in in the travel basketball world is when you when you make it to the higher rounds, you'll have a game on Sunday, but it'll be like at one o'clock or or noon, and and we can make those.

You know, you come here and then we go do that.

That's a lot of my Sunday afternoons.

And uh we found out yesterday, oh, the games at 8 a.m.

on Sunday.

I went to a game this morning at 8 and then came here.

Like I was grateful that it was over and plenty of time to make it here.

That was, I mean, I would have been here even if it was, I don't know why we're clapping.

I really have no idea for that.

8 a.m.

games.

8 a.m.

games are horrible.

But I am grateful I got to go, I got to go watch the game and be here.

And if it would have been at 10, I obviously would have been here.

But I got to go.

But here's the thing.

Last night when we found out the game was at 8, the parents were a little bit like, oh, we weren't planning on that.

They were gonna go back to where they live, a couple hour drive, and then just come back tomorrow.

But then they had to scramble and get hotel rooms, and that gets expensive really fast.

And so Megan and I were like, hey, listen, we we live in the area.

The games were incoming.

I was like, so why don't why don't the boys just stay with us?

And they were like, oh my gosh, that would be awesome.

So we said, okay.

And they all went out to lunch, and I was like, make it a long lunch, because we weren't prepared for this at all.

Like at all.

The the rooms, the state of the house.

And so we start driving back.

And all of a sudden we committed to this, but we hadn't thought through it.

That's how I live my life.

And so I got married at 21.

What can I say?

I don't have no idea what I'm doing.

So we're like, whoa, what do we do?

Oh, that room, we can okay, we can put a bed there and we can take this thing and put it on the floor.

And then we're like, oh, we have other kids in our house.

What do we do with them?

And we sort of figured it out, like, okay, our little boys can sleep downstairs, but then our daughter, where's she gonna be?

And there's a lot of boys in the house, and she she won't have room.

And so we called Todd Nash and we said, Hey, hey guys, could can Todd can Lily spend the night with you guys?

I know it's short notice.

If can she like, like now?

Can she come over to your house now and be your child for the rest of the day?

And I already knew what the answer would be.

It was yes.

They're like, absolutely, bring her.

So okay, we'll we'll get her ready.

She was at uh dance right at the time.

She didn't even know.

And so that's our life right now.

We're very pray for us.

So Lily's at dance.

We're here, we're coming, we're coming back.

We got six boys plus our son coming to spend the night at our house.

So what you have to understand, these are not normal boys.

I'm gonna show you, I took a video of this because I need material for the message.

Um, this is them coming down the stairs for dinner last night.

There's Judah, my my third, okay.

Here comes Liam, a normal-sized human.

Okay, he's he's tall.

Okay, that's that's Shaheim.

Shaheem's 6'2, okay.

Here comes Josh.

Josh is a six foot eight, 14-year-old.

Um, he's the number two ranked player in the nation, according to ESPN.

Yep.

And then there's Zadan is 6'1, and then there's Percy is 6'5.

And so uh they ate 48 cookies in two minutes last night.

I'm not I'm not exaggerating.

48 cookies gone.

Like a like a I mean, a platoon of soldiers had come in or something.

That was crazy.

Okay, so we fed them, and without Todd Nashley, it wouldn't have worked, but but to make it even harder.

So went to get Lily at dance, picked her up, and I was like, hey, we're gonna take you home, we're gonna get you packed because you're spending the night with Todd Nashley because you know, like there's boys, it's so many boys, huge boys, giant human boys are in our house.

So you're gonna spend and she was excited, but then on the way back home, while the boys are in transit to our house, my van breaks down.

And I mean, like, totally just electrical system, like everything, bam, bam, bam.

I'm like, what is happening?

It shuts down, and so I'm like, what do I do?

I called my wife seven times, she didn't answer once.

That's okay, that's how marriage works, you know.

And I'm sure one of our other boys had her phone, just who knows?

So I was like, what do I do?

I'm stranded, my car will not turn on, and I've got all these boys coming, and we need a vehicle to get them where they I mean, they're huge.

We need a van for sure.

Like Liam's probably gonna have to be stuffed in the trunk, like we're gonna figure it out.

And uh, and so I I called Todd and Ashley.

I was like, hey.

First of all, thank you for letting Lily stay with you.

Second, help.

Please help.

And I knew what the answer would be.

Yes, because they're true friends, and they showed up.

And so they came and they drove two cars so that Ashley could take Lily back, and Todd hung with me, and we opened up the hood, and he knows cars pretty well, so we kind of identified some things, went and got some coolant, put coolant in the car, got it running, but it wasn't like there yet, so we took it to a shop close by, dropped it off.

They're like, We can't look at it till Tuesday.

And then Todd goes, Look, here, take my take my car.

You can have it.

He's got a big car.

He's like, You can have it, use it as much as you want.

And I'm like, Are you sure?

He said, Absolutely.

And then I drove him, dropped him off at home.

And I'm driving his car.

Like, again, Todd Nashley, thank you guys.

I know where y'all are sitting, you guys are amazing, so thank you so much.

That's a true friend.

So I was able to drive the giant boys this morning, two coming, drop them off, and then get here.

It was great.

They won by 37.

Just saying.

Okay, so here you go.

Yeah.

Proud dad.

Sorry.

All right.

I really am.

I'm super proud of him.

I couldn't have done any of that without friends.

Like, literally, life doesn't always cooperate.

And that wasn't even bad things, really.

I mean, a car breaking down's not fun, but surprise guests coming over.

Things like that happen all the time in life.

And you need friends.

You need people who you can call, and you know what the answer would be.

And I promise you, I already know what the answer would be if they called me.

I would drop anything for them.

Because that's what friends do, that's what real friends do.

Epaphroditus traveled.

He spent time with Paul in prison, in a rough situation.

He got sick, he almost died, and Paul had to make him leave.

Because true friends show up.

True friends are present.

Do you have people in your life who are there for you?

And I mean by there for you, you're like they're actually there.

They don't run away when things get hard.

When things are awkward, they don't just vanish.

But you know that if you're in a tough spot, you can call them and they pick up.

And they're like, yeah, what do you need?

Do you have people that and flip it around?

Are you that kind of friend?

Are you that kind of friend?

Where you'll you'll say, I'm there.

All of this is a challenge for us personally, too.

That's what real friends are.

Real friends are genuine.

Real friends are present.

And I'm gonna add one real quick and we'll we'll wrap this up.

Real friends are also wise.

You know, when I started talking about this, I mentioned that friendship is important, it can determine the way your life goes.

Friendship is vulnerable because friends can hurt you, so sometimes it's easy for us to distance ourselves because we don't want to get hurt, but truthfully, we need friends.

But when we're younger, the criteria for friends is pretty simple.

Do they like the same things I like?

And I said, as we get older, friendship becomes more complicated because our criteria should become a little bit more complex.

Your criteria for who your true friends are should be more than shared interests.

Like, what is the ultimate criteria for a great friend?

And I hope that this morning helps with that.

I hope that we realize I need genuine people around me.

I need people who are present.

But we also need people who are wise.

Proverbs 13, 20 says, walk with the wise and become wise.

Associate with fools and get in trouble.

Another scripture says iron sharpens iron.

Right?

So a friend sharpens another.

True friends are wise.

True friends sharpen you.

When you spend time with them, you learn from them.

Honestly, that guys, that's why I had Heath speak last week.

Not because he's a comedian and he's in commercials.

But because, and again, Heath, I'm sorry because I didn't run any of this by you at all.

I don't even know if he's here today.

I don't know.

He probably probably just did it last week and then ran.

Who knows?

Heath.

No, he's here, I'm sure.

I hope.

But honestly, the reason I asked Heath to speak last week is because I've spent the last year getting to know him and he's gone through some really difficult things.

And I've listened to him, and he has sharpened me.

As we've spent time together, I have learned I have a deeper understanding of God and life because of my friendship with him than I did a year ago.

So knowing I have been sharpened by him because he's wise.

I heard a pastor give a message on this once, and it was a very direct, some ways, even a harsh message, but really good too.

Sometimes harsh truth, hard truth is is needed.

And he basically said this that people are either wise, foolish, or evil.

Those are the three categories.

And he defined a wise person as someone who ultimately is doing everything within their ability and power to do life well.

And this would be someone who knows the Lord.

And I'm not saying that judgmentally, that if you don't know the Lord, you're not you're not wise, but living apart from your creator, living life in denial or resistance to the one who who is above all things is it is foolish.

There's no other way to describe it.

We need God.

And so wise friends are following after God, doing their best, not perfect at it.

Not that they're experts on God or whatever, but they're just they're doing that, and they're doing everything they can to do life the right way.

That's what that's wise.

And he said, with wise people, you can pull the curtain back, man.

You can be open and honest and you can share everything.

You can walk so closely with them and be vulnerable.

And he said the second category is people who are foolish.

And foolish people just do what they feel like doing.

And sometimes they feel like doing a good thing, and sometimes they feel like doing things that aren't good.

And they're just sort of at the mercy of their feelings.

And we've all been that, if we're honest.

We've all been foolish.

But if people live foolishly, it's random, it's scattered, there's no consistency, and so it's hard to trust foolishness because it's like rolling the dice.

And then evil is a category, and truthfully, we've all known evil people, and what he defined evil as is people who they don't care.

They're selfish, they want what they want, and they don't care what they have to do to get it.

And if you can help them get it, great, they're with you, but if you're in their way, watch out.

And there's a lot of evil people in the world who are just out for their own interests and they don't care who they hurt as long as they get what they want.

And he said, you know, you can't have close friendships with evil people.

And you you can't really have close friendships with foolish people.

That's one of the hardest things.

Because if we're honest, sometimes one of the best aspects of life are having friends who do silly stuff.

Like we've all had an idiot friend, right?

Who like that guy's hysterical because he does a laugh, like that's okay, that can't be a real criteria for a friend.

It's not someone to laugh at.

Foolish people can't become our closest friends because the scriptures say that if we walk with the wise, we become wise, but if we associate with fools, it leads our lives into danger.

We've got to walk with the wise.

We have to value wisdom.

When you think about the people that are your friends, that you want to be your friends, that you you're gonna value as close friends, are they wise?

Are they seeking after God?

Are they doing everything in their power to live right?

And if those are the people that you make your close friends, ooh, the blessing that that will give you.

It will sharpen you, it will strengthen you.

And so, do you value that in your friends?

And are you that to your friends?

Are you wise?

Are you living life to the best of your ability to do what honors God and what benefits others?

And if you're that, you're gonna be a great friend to people, and if you value that in friendship, oh my goodness, you will have great people around you.

Now, as we close, a worship team, you guys can make your way out.

I'll just recap really quick.

We need true friends.

Paul had it, he was in a tough situation, but he had the joy of good friends.

We all need to have the joy of good friends in our lives, and good friends are genuine, they will tell you what is true, even if it's hard for you to hear.

Good friends are present, they will show up, they will help you, they will give you their car and take your children.

Maybe not at a specific thing, but good friends are present, they will show up when you need them.

Good friends are wise, they will sharpen you.

Now, as a church, we want to do everything we can to help you have that, and I will say, we actually launched something just now, and it's gonna grow a lot in the next few weeks on our mobile app.

And our website, we have a new little tab called community.

And we've got several groups on there right now, and we're gonna add to that a lot.

Basically, we have a lot of the categories that we had listed for our stick arounds.

You can, at any point in time, go to community on our mobile app, go to our website, click community, and you can opt in to those groups.

And basically, what you're opting into is just, hey, I want to be updated about anything going on with this group of people.

I want to know what's happening, whether it's a Bible study or a social outing or whatever, and it's just a chance for you to be surrounded by some people here who no one here's perfect, okay?

But the best friends I have ever had, they've been my church friends.

Because we we just have a different connection.

We're doing life, trying our best to do life through the power of the Holy Spirit with Jesus at the core, with our faith in God as the primary guiding principle in our lives.

And so you can have great friends outside of church, I'm not saying that, but there's something special about church friends.

We want to help you make church friends.

And so, if you're interested, check out the community page, no pressure, but it's just a way for you to opt in, be like, yeah, I want to know when this group of people is hanging out again.

And we're gonna add to that.

I mean, even the next week, next week there'll be more groups listed.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to connect.

But I want to finish with this.

We sang, I said at the very beginning, pin this.

And again, so grateful for our worship team.

And when they when they put set lists together, they pray about that.

And it's amazing how often the Holy Spirit is way ahead of us.

Because when Matt planned the set list today, he did not know what I was talking about.

I didn't know.

And that last line that we sang together, the the was it, the wonder and the beauty of your friendship or something like that?

The gift of your friendship?

Okay, this is what I was gonna close with.

John 15, 15.

Jesus talking to his disciples and through them, us.

I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn't confide in his slaves.

Now you are my friends, since I've told you everything the Father told me.

You want a true friend, someone who is genuine, who will tell you the truth always, even if it's hard?

You want a friend who is present always, always there for you?

You want a friend who is wise, who knows exactly what you need to know and understand, who will sharpen you.

Jesus.

We need human friends.

Jesus is human, different kind of human.

But there is no friend you can have greater than him.

There's none.

And so I just want to put this out there because I think I'd be really doing a disservice if not.

If you don't know Jesus, if you haven't given your life to him, if you haven't surrendered everything to him, he is real, he is alive, he's present through his spirit, can be with you at all times.

He is genuine, he is wise, he's loving, he's forgiving, he's merciful, he's caring, he's understanding.

You need Jesus.

And the truth is, no amount of human friendship can ever fill that void.

Now, if you have Jesus, if you're a Jesus follower, which many of us are, you need you need to experience Jesus in community with others.

Don't be selfish with Jesus.

Don't don't share Jesus, okay?

Share Him.

In fact, Jesus actually values that so much that He says, when two or more gather together in my name, I am there with them.

He values us being together.

But but I'm saying, if you don't know Jesus, if you haven't given your life to him, you cannot substitute the friendship you can have with Jesus, with 20, 50,000 human on this earth friends.

You need an eternal friend.

And he is our friend.

And there is there's a gift that he's given us in friendship with him.

That we are, yes, he's our king and he's our God and he's our Lord, but we're friends with him.

And so all of us have access right now.

Don't have to go to a website, don't have to click a community tab on a mobile app.

Every one of us has access right now to the greatest friend you could ever have on this earth and beyond, and it is Jesus Christ.

And so if you don't know him, my prayer today is that you would give your life to him.

Surrender to him.

Give him everything.

Sign up, get baptized, go all in.

In fact, we're gonna finish up with someone right now going all in, I promise.

But if you have Jesus, share him with others.

Live life in community and value genuine friends, wise friends, friends who are there.

Be that for other people too, and experience the joy of friendship.

Okay.

Let's pray together, and then we've got one person going all in with Jesus.

We're gonna celebrate that.

So, Father God, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you for the joy of friends.

And Lord, I recognize that as we pray, there are some of us in the room who feel like we have an abundance of really great friends, and that is a blessing.

And Lord, thank you if that's our situation.

But I also know that a lot of us right now, we don't have that.

Maybe we feel lonely, maybe today's message is hard because we feel like we're alone.

But help us recognize that in this room are friends we just haven't met yet.

Help us take advantage, Lord, of the people that we're surrounded with.

That we're a family.

We're a family.

We love each other.

And help us step up and be the friends that we're called to be for those of us that are in this room that have a need for that.

Lord, help us help us be willing to offer ourselves up as friends to those who need it.

Lord, we love you, and most of all, Lord, we thank you that you are the greatest friend we will ever have.

And that you have made us friends with you.

You've essentially asked us, almost like a kid in preschool at the playground, will you be my friend?

And Lord, let our answer always be yes.

Because there is no one more genuine, there's no one more present, there's no one more wise than you.

We love you, Jesus, and we thank you for all that you're doing in our lives and in this church.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.