The Church of Eleven22 - Abundant Friendship - Live Abundantly: Wk 3

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

Loneliness is not just a social crisis, but a spiritual crisis. We have all of the advantages against loneliness because Jesus is the greatest friend you could have. There’s no body like Him.

I want to be a part of that. Amen. Amen, amen, amen. Church, if you would, stand with me for the reading of God's Word. Good morning. I'll be reading from the book of Proverbs chapter 8, verses 32 through 36. And now, O sons, listen to me. Blessed are those who keep my ways.

Hear instruction and be wise and do not neglect it. blessed is the one who listens to me watching daily at my gates waiting beside my doors for whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the lord but he who fails to find me injures himself all who hate me love death may god bless the reading and the hearing of his word amen amen you can have a seat man good morning church it's good to see you we are in a series called Live Abundantly. And we've been here for the last few weeks studying the New Testament,

or the Old Testament book of Proverbs. If you will grab your Bibles and open them to the middle, you'll be very close to Proverbs. And we've been on a journey, as you've heard multiple times throughout our service already today, called the 10-10 life,

where we've been studying as a church, John chapter 10, verse 10, where Jesus extends an invitation, and he says, I have come that they would have life abundantly. We've been asking this question, Am I living the abundant life as offered to me by Jesus, or am I living a life that's chasing after other things that will never fully satisfy? We've been studying the book of Proverbs because Proverbs helps us take hold of the invitation of Jesus in our life.

It's one thing to get invited to a party. It's another thing to show up and enjoy the party. And Proverbs helps us to take possession of the thing that Jesus has invited us into. The truth is that everybody's life is full. everybody's life is full of hurry, everybody's life is full of busy, everybody's life is full of things to do, places to be. Sometimes our life is full of worry, our life is full of opportunities, everybody's life is full? The question is, is our life full of things that give life, or is it just full? Today we're going to be talking about the role that relationships play in our

life, and every good relationship starts on the foundation of friendship, and you may hear a relationships talk, well, that's going to be complicated. And it's true because people are complicated, amen? You ever met a person that's not complicated? Right? You should get real close to them. People are complicated. It's complicated to be in relationships. I grew up a child of the 90s. This was a different century. And in the 90s, there were two TV shows that dominated television, Seinfeld and Friends. Everywhere you turned, these shows were on still today. they dominate the TV in many ways, but both of these shows ultimately were about nothing. They were about nothing other than friendship.

And they painted a picture and defined for an entire generation their version of what friendship should be or what it looked like. And ultimately the picture that they painted was this, that friends hung out together a lot and they made each other laugh. And that was what friendship was. I remember when friends would come on that when it was really like in its pinnacle, that we didn't have like the recording devices built into the internet in our TV. We didn't have the internet.

I know. I know. It was crazy. It was a crazy time. We used to take VHS tapes and we'd put them in VCRs. And we'd have to set timers in order to get them to record or you would have to be home when the actual show aired at the time that it was appointed to air. So when Friends was coming on, I remember everybody would be sitting on the edge of the couch and the music would start and you'd start singing with them. And you'd be thinking, this is awesome, man.

I want an umbrella and a couch and a phone. fountain. And I just want people to hang out with all the time. And this picture of friendship really, really took hold. The Bible has a different picture of friendship than what popular culture has painted for many years. And we're going to dig into that today. If you've been paying attention over the last few years in our country, you know one thing is for sure that loneliness is an epidemic. Every single month, if not every single week, a major study comes out pointing to the devastating impacts that loneliness is having on people in our culture. The United States Surgeon General, this is the U.S. government. The current priority for the U.S.

Surgeon General is to end the loneliness epidemic by promoting and providing social connection. Think about that. They say that one and two adults in our country regularly experience feelings of loneliness and that the feeling of loneliness is as detrimental to our physical and mental health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It is a feeling that has the power to kill you over time. In John chapter 10, verse 10, the first part, Jesus says that the enemy only comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. Well, how does he do this?

Well, ultimately, his game is to lure us into isolation and to drown us in feelings of loneliness. That is his game. That is what he's been out for a long time. to lure people into isolations and then drown them in feelings of loneliness. I mean, have you ever been surrounded by people and yet felt all alone? Have you ever been in a season of life or in a moment where everything is going great, but for some reason you just can't enjoy it?

If you're like me, you hear the word lonely and you bristle up against it. You push back like with it comes an inherent sense of rejection. And so when we say lonely, what do we mean? What is loneliness? Well, I believe loneliness is best to find as the feeling of being a person who used to have friends. Loneliness is the ache that we feel for something that we used to have. I love Christmas. I don't just love it a little bit.

I love Christmas. I'm wild about it. I love the pajamas. I love the parties. I love the smells. I love the flavors. I would take a bath in a peppermint mocha if I could. I'm into it.

I love the whole thing. I love it all. At the month of December, I wake up and I walk into my living room and I hug my Christmas tree just because I'm so happy to see it. I love Christmas music. I start negotiating terms with my children around Labor Day as to when we can start listening to Christmas music. I'm into it. But this wasn't always the case. December 26th of 1995 was the last time that my mother ever left my house alive.

She died a couple of weeks later after losing an almost two-year fight with cancer. And let's just say that after that Christmas lost its flavor. And we kind of patched it together as a family for the next couple of years. I was 14 years old at the time, and we kind of hodgeposhed it for a couple of years. But by the time I went to college, we just all made ourselves very busy around Christmas to not have to deal with the grief and the things that we were walking through. And so I made myself very busy. My brother made himself very busy.

My dad made himself very busy. And around the holidays, we would just get busy. And we would even get busy doing really good things like Jesus kind of stuff. But ultimately what we were trying to do is to avoid the pain of the life that we had been walking through. And the thing about being busy around Christmas time is that you can't actually be busy on Christmas Day because nothing's open. And so for many Christmas days, I would spend all alone. I did this for many years and people were with their families

and doing their thing and so I would go to the movie theater that's what I did on Christmas Day. Why? Because all the best movies come out on Christmas. So I would go to the movie theater and watch two movies because I didn't want to deal with my life. It was easier for me to watch somebody else's version of life than it was to live my own.

So I would go to the movies and in between movies I would go and eat at the Waffle House. Why? Because it's good. good, that's why. And if you don't feel good about yourself, what else are you going to eat? You know? So I would go to the Waffle House, and the Waffle House became this real symbol of loneliness in my life. And this went on for many years. And then one day I met a friend. She was five foot two. She is five foot two. And I wanted her to be my friend. You know what I mean?

and we became friends, and then friendship led to dating. And then our first dating Christmas, I remember that she would tell me all about her family's traditions around Christmas. And we would, I didn't really unload my baggage on her at the time around Christmas. I would just listen to her stories, and I went to spend a little bit of time with her family, but ultimately I just kind of did my own thing. By the next Christmas, we were married. We were married. And our first married Christmas together, my wife decided that it was a good idea.

because she makes really good decisions all the time, but this one was particularly good that we were going to see all the family that we knew in the world. And so we wanted to see all of our cousins and all of our aunts and uncles and grandparents. And so Christmas lasted for more than 20 days that December, and we drove across five states.

It's amazing. I've never eaten more red velvet cake in my entire life. Just wore it out. As we're driving around and we're growing in our newfound friendship, one of the things my wife loves is Christmas music. And so she would play the same Christmas record. over and over and over and over again.

Amy Grant's Tennessee Christmas, just nonstop. But as this new friendship formed, this new marriage was coming together. You know what happened over time as I was listening to this music? All of a sudden, my foot would start to tap in the car. All of a sudden, I would start to sing the lyrics back and pay attention to what they said. Then we get to the end of that Christmas, and we're home, and I look at her, and I do it with any self-respecting man, but do I look at it, and I'm like, baby, you go to the Waffle House with me.

And she said yes. And so we went to the Waffle House. And the seat right across from me where loneliness had been for so many years, and I was filled with a person that God would use to change my life. Amen for that. Now 17 years later, every Christmas, my wife and now my two daughters, we go to the Waffle House, and every time that we're there together, I am reminded every single time that God redeems broken things.

God redeems broken things, and he always uses people to do it. Whether it's losing a loved one or moving from one place to another, whether it's changing churches or changing cities, it's feelings of being excluded, it's a breakup, it's a divorce, it's being hurt by someone you trust. Loneliness can come for each of us. and our culture at an unrelenting pace is pulling us toward feelings of loneliness.

If I were your enemy and I wanted to take you out, do you know what I would do? I would create devices that purpose was distraction, and I would fill them with 24-hour news feeds, and I would fill them with information about relationships, and I would put one of them in your hand that gave you information about relationships so that you would mistake that for the real thing.

That's what I would do. Why would I do this? It goes all the way back to Genesis chapter one. Genesis chapter one, it says that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And this creative God on the first day, he turned the lights on and he said, it is good. He hung the heavens in the sky and said, it is good. And then he created the lands and the plants and the seas and the trees. And he said that they were good.

And then he created the animals that swim and the animals that fly. And he said, it was good. And then he created the animals that roamed the earth. and in the pinnacle of his creative expression, God created his masterpiece when he created man. And after he had finished creating, he looked at all that he had created in Genesis chapter 1, verse 31, it says that God saw that what he had done

and he said that it was very good. This word, very good, is the Hebrew word shalom, which means universal flourishing. It means overflowing abundance. God created you and me to overflow in abundance in our lives. The abundant life was God's idea. from the very beginning, from the relationships that he puts us in, from the inside out, from relationships to responsibilities, God created us for the abundant life.

And then in Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, it says that God sees man and says, it's not good that man would what, be alone. This is not just a marriage verse. This is a companionship verse. Loneliness is a spiritual crisis, not just a social one. We are some of the most spiritually and relationally isolated people who have ever lived on the planet. And we have more access to information, we have more geography, and we have more stuff than anyone ever. The truth is you were made for people, not for possessions.

You were made for people, not for performance. You were made for people, not for busy. You were made for people, and it is this fact that explains so often while we feel the way that we do. Because when our relationships are right, things feel right. But when our relationships are wrong, the world feels wrong. You were made by God for people. As God created in Genesis 1, verse 26 and 27, he says, let us make man in our image. Well, who is us and who is our? It says that male and female, he created them both in his image, he created them. What does it to be created in the image of God.

Well, it means a lot of things, but two, I'll give you today, is one, that you were created as eternal. You will live forever somewhere. This is part of what it means to be created in God's image, that you are eternal. And it's a really good thing for you to think about the fact that you will live forever somewhere. You weren't just created eternal.

You were created eternally relational. You were created as to have relationships and to be in relationships. Why? Because God is a relationship in and of himself. He is the first relationship. He is the first community. This is what we mean when we say that God is Trinity.

When he says, let us, what he means is God the Father, who's the Creator, God the Son, who is Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit, who have eternally existed as three persons, co-equal in parts, unified as one. This is the Trinity. God is a relationship in and of himself. And this relationship that God has with God's self, he creates from this relationship. relationship. He is father, son, and Holy Spirit all the time. He is relational. He is never alone. And when we are his children by faith, neither are we. And the beautiful thing about this is this God who is so mysterious yet desires to be known, this God who is so transcendent,

yet has come so near and made himself accessible to us that he is love. It's just who he is. And that's the best news you've ever heard. That God is love. Love is not just something God does, it is who God is. It's who He is. 1 John chapter 4, verse 8 says, God is love, period. And God has been in love with God for a very, very, very long time for all of eternity. His relationship is 100% unified. And he practices a reciprocal self-ded love at all times, which means God is both the subject and the object of his love, which means that God did not create people out of need. He wasn't sitting around going, you know what, I need some folks to be their co-pilot.

That's not why God created from a place of need. God created us out of an overflow of love. God's love, he's been lavishing on himself in relationship forever and ever and ever. From this place of love, he created people so that he could lavish his love on them and that they could enjoy him in the same way that he has eternally enjoyed himself.

God created you so that he could share himself with you and you could have an abundant life by being loved by him and being in love with him. That is why we're on the planet, is to be loved by God and to be in love with God. It's a result of who he is

and why he did the work of creation. To be created in God's image means you are eternally relational on a journey of desire that can only be fulfilled as you receive God's love for you through Jesus and give God's love to others in Jesus' name. So you were created by God,

God and you were created for people. How are we to live inside these relationships that God created us for? Well, this is where the Proverbs come in. The Proverbs are principles for living inside of God's promises. They are, as Pastor Jobi said, God's wisdom for living God's way in God's world. The Proverbs teach us how to live inside the relationships that God formed us for. And so keeping in the 90s theme, I'm going to do my best David's. Letterman top 10 list from the Proverbs about friendships and relationships. The first five are things

that you want to avoid according to God, things that you do not want to be, and people that you do not want to bring into your inner circle of friendship. The next five are things that you want to be or things that you want to find in a friend. When the proverbs say the word friend, it means trusted confidant. You can be friendly to a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons, but friend is trusted confidant. Pastor Jobb he calls these. You're corner-toters, the people that have the edge of your mat, the people that you put your trust in their hands and relationships, and they help carry you through life. This is an inner circle of friendship that Proverbs is talking about. As we study Proverbs, one of the things we see for sure

is that friendships are not found, they are built. So who do we want to be as a friend? Who do we want to have as friends according to God? So let's start with what to avoid being and who to avoid being friends with as a trusted confidant. This is just real life advice. It's just smart living. Number one, the wicked or evil. Proverbs chapter four, verses 14 and 15 says, do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it. Do not go on it, turn away from it and pass on. Now on one level, this is self-explanatory. If you ever get a phone call from someone you know and they're like, hey, what's you doing this weekend? You want to build pipe bombs? That's not a good friend, right? What's going on? Do some murder? This is not the people you want to be friends with,

right? So there's one, on one level, it's saying stay away from those who are morally or ethically wicked. For sure, that's just good advice. Just stay away from them. But the Bible, when it says the word wicked or evil, it never just stops at a moral or an ethical wickedness. It is talking about the debts of it. It's talking about a spiritual wickedness. And the way that I look learned how to understand this according to the Bible was that if you take the word live and you spell it backward, what does it spell? Evil. And so anyone who is living life backwards from how God designed life to be lived, you should keep them at a distance. Anybody who's living life backward from how God designed life to be lived is not someone you want to bring into your

trusted confidant circle. So number one, the wicked. Number two, the fool. The fool. Proverbs has much to say about the fool. In chapter 14, verse 7, it says, leave the presence of a fool. For there you do not meet words of knowledge. Have you ever gotten an argument with a fool before? Don't point.

Yeah, it doesn't go good. Proverbs chapter 13, verse 20, says, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. The fool is the unteachable. the arrogant, the not open to rebuke, the one that has a flippant attitude toward their sin, there's quick to point out others' faults when confronted with their own. They're self-deceitful.

They are self-reflective, but not self-aware. The fool is the passive-aggressive person that loves to be right and loves the sound of their own voice. I've never met a fool that was like, hey, I'm a fool, right? And make life a lot easier if it went that way. but most of the fools I know spend all of their time trying to convince others that they're not fools and they use a lot of words to do it. Proverbs 18, verse 2 says, a fool takes no pleasure in understanding but only in expressing his opinion. Proverbs chapter 18, verse 2 says, a fool takes no pleasure in understanding but only expressing his opinion.

Number three, quick to anger. What to avoid. Proverbs chapter 22, verses 20. 24 and 25, make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare. A couple of months ago, we preached through the book of James and Pastor Jobi, as he always does, did an unbelievable job on week three of that series, and he dedicated the whole thing to anger, the consequences of the process of healing from, and I would highly encourage you to go check it out. But every single one of us know the reality that anger is just a different kind of emotion. It comes with a different kind of weight.

It has a different kind of gravity to it. And I was with a counselor one time, and he told me that we were, he had a theory that we were all by default bent toward one of three emotions. And that this is the result of our very young childhood years and both the nature that we were born with. You put these things together, and you are pulled kind of in a default way toward one of three emotions. And this is sad, mad, and glad. It's easy to remember.

it. So let's just imagine that Pastor Stone and I were driving to the Georgia, Florida game here next weekend. And we're heading to the stadium, and we're coming over the bridge. And all of a sudden, traffic is just stopped. And we see a dog running across the bridge. Now, someone might see that dog, like my friend Pastor Stone, whose default is glad. And he would be like, let's go, dog. Like, you're free, man, have a good time. And he'd be like, get that dog awesome. and be pumped about it. Somebody else may see that dog and be like, oh, how sad. That dog is all alone. You think we should get him? What if he gets hurt? And then someone who's a little more like me would see that dog and be like,

what's wrong with people? What's wrong with people? Why can't you keep up with your dog? And what are all you people doing stopping? Have you never seen a dog before? Like this would be my natural response, right? But regardless of how I'm bent, it never gives me the excuse to act out in anger toward others.

Anger is just a different kind of emotion. I've learned as someone who has worked through a lot of angst and frustration, and what I mean is that you're just humming right under the surface on nine all the time. With disappointment and frustration, if somebody bumps into you the wrong way, you are quick to give a harsh word. You're quick to throw a judgment out. as someone who's spent many years working through this kind of anger bubbling right below the surface,

what I've learned is that almost all of my anger in life comes from my illusions of control. I don't want control over people. What I want to be able to predict is outcomes that don't belong to me. And when I can't, fear comes out, and the way that it comes out is in the form of anger. As a dad, as a mom, as a friend in close relationship. When we act angry toward those closest to us, the Proverbs is saying it is like you putting their leg in a bear trap. It is like closing a bear trap around their leg. And the thing about when you get your leg stuck in a bear trap is that it takes time to get it off and it takes time to heal.

So I don't want to be a person who's quick to anger and I don't want to be surrounded with people who are quick to anger because I don't want my leg to be in a bear trap. brass tacks when I am angry it's because I do not trust God and let me encourage you with this today in areas where you may have a hard time trusting that God has his best for you and it's this that nobody no one can give you what God has not and no one can keep you from what God has for you you can trust him number four the person given to excess Proverbs chapter 23 verses 19 through 21

Hear my son and be wise and direct your heart in the way. Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat. Pause. I want to be really clear what it's saying here. It doesn't say anything about carbs, right? It doesn't. And it's also not talking about Chick-fil-A. Because you're practically advancing the kingdom every time you go to Chick-fil-A.

So I'm just letting you know right out of the gate what it's talking about. Somebody said amen. All right, my people. Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters. eaters of meat. For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty and slumber will clothe them with rags. Anyone who lacks self-control. And this is a fruit of the spirit of God that he is growing the fruit of self-control within us because it is good to be in control of ourselves. It is good as God glorifying. Anywhere we lack self-control, whether it be excessive spending, I had to remove

the Amazon app from my phone in 2020. I did. It got out of control, man. every day when we're all locked in our houses, I'm on the Amazon app and I'm just buying cheap stuff. You know why? Because I just like the way that it felt when the box showed up at my house. A new person would come up to my door and I'd be like, hey, person, right?

I was just so excited to see them. I had to take the app off of my phone and it's still not back on my phone and you're like, how do you live? You just have to work it out. Whether it's excessive spending or too much time with a hobby at the expense of our family,

whether it's video games or eating or drinking or talking. Does anyone know an excessive talker? Right? Don't be doing the like, subtle point thing, right? Don't do it. Anywhere you lack self-control, it is a lid on your life and your leadership and your relationships. Why? Because ultimately, we will begin to grow to want that thing that we're excessive with more and more and more and more. And we will trade temporary things that we can have in excess for permanent things like responsible. and purpose, and when we do, we will be trading beauty for ashes every single time. Every single time.

The person given to excess. And number five, the perpetually discontented. What to avoid, what to avoid being, perpetually discontented. Proverbs 24, 21, and 22 says, my son, fear the Lord and the king. And do not join with those who do otherwise, for disaster will arise suddenly from them. and who knows that ruin will come from them both. What Proverbs is saying is keep it simple, man. Keep life simple.

Don't be stupid, but keep it simple. I bumped into this thing many years ago called the myth of there. And the myth of there ultimately is this, that whenever I get there, I will finally be satisfied. And there could be a number in my bank account. There could be a relationship status. There could be a promotion. There could be an acknowledgement or a citizen.

of credit, there could be a seat in certain friendships or relationships. Whenever we get there, then we will fully and finally be satisfied. But do you know that as I've lived through seasons of life, every time that I've gotten there, do you know who's there with me? Me. I'm there every single time. And the question is not, will I trust God when I get there? The question is, will I trust God right here, regardless of where he has me? The invitation is to trust him. is something that I've lived with over and over a year, over and over for years, specifically in my professional life. My wife used to call it the one-year itch.

It was so prevalent that she gave it a name, that every 12 months I wanted a significant change in life because everything I had and everything I was doing just was never good enough. I was perpetually discontented. Do you know what changed that for me? You did. This church started in 2012,

and I was serving at a church in Atlanta at the time, and in 2013 I get the phone call from Pastor Jobi and Pastor Stone, and they invite me to come down to see this new church launch that's taking off, that God's blessing, and see if I might want to be a part of it. So I came down on a visit. Now, keep in mind, at this point, we had lived in six different houses than six years across four states because of the perpetual discontentment. And so I come down to Jacksonville,

and I'm at the original San Pablo campus, which is all the Church of 1122 was at the time, and I'm standing on the back wall, and Pastor Jobi is up there just preaching the gospel. I mean, he is preaching Christ crucified in every word. Which, side note, thank God for that man, by the way. Right? And he's preaching the gospel, and he's just slinging it,

and I'm leaning against the back wall, and all of a sudden my heart starts to beat a little bit faster. My eyes start to fill with tears, and I hear the still small voice of God, And he says, Ryan, you're supposed to belong to these people. These are your people, and I want you to belong to them. My entire life, I had been looking for a job or for a position when the reality is that God had for me a people.

I love this church. The church is not primarily just a place that you attend. It's a people that you belong to. I am convinced that the second most important question you will ever answer in your life is, what church do you belong to? who do you marry and what church do you belong to? These are life-defining questions. I'm thankful for this church and God used you to lead me into a season of being satisfied in him and I thank you for that. The perpetually discontented. Five more to say this is what you want to be. This is who you want to be.

This is who you want to pursue in relationships. Number one, Proverbs chapter 3, verse 29 says, do not plan evil or harm against your neighbor who dwells trustingly beside you. You want to be a person that's safe. When people put their trust in you, it is safe. And you say, well, I hear you, pastor, but you don't know my neighbor. You don't know my neighbor. Safe does not mean always agreeable. It doesn't mean peace exclusively.

It means trust. Let me ask you this today quickly. When someone puts their trust in you, is it safe? And right on the hills of safe is loyal. Number two, loyal. Proverbs 17 verses 9 says this, whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.

Gossip is almost every Christian I know's favorite sin, and almost no one thinks of it as a sin. Loyalty steps in for people, it does not talk about people when they're not around. It doesn't make wrong things right, but it sticks with you. It consequences in turmoil, these cases, kind of friends are there. People who love each other do not tell lies about each other.

They choose each other over and over and over again. Real friends do not wait on each other to say something or do something and then hold them hostage to that thing for a really long time. That's not what friendship's about. So number one is safe. Number two is loyal. And it says this in Proverbs 2620, for a lack of wood, the fire goes out and where there is no whisperer quarreling ceases. where there's nobody gossiping, there is no turmoil. Number three, the generous. Proverbs chapter 3, verse 27 and 28 says, do not withhold good from those whom it is due

when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, go and come again tomorrow, I will give it when you have it with you. Who has the kind of friend that always picks up the tap? Who has the kind of friend that when you ask them for help, they bless you ten times what you were asking for? Now, I want you to know where you are. You are currently sitting in a church that is packed with generous people.

I mean, packed. And I'm not just talking about, like, cultural's definition of generous. I'm talking about the Bible's definition of generous. People who are generous unto the Lord and generous unto each other with time, talent, and treasure. It is a true joy to be a part of this church and the people that fill this place every day, every weekend, over and over and over again. A generous church. Pastor Jobb, he said it a couple of weeks ago. he said nobody gets credit for going to a generous church.

The question is, are you a generous person? Are you a generous person? As we've been walking on the 10-10 life, one of the areas where, as we've studied John 10-10, we're saying we want to hear the voice of our good shepherd, who is Jesus, and we want to do whatever he tells us to do in every area of life. One of the areas we've been asking the good shepherd to speak to us

is in the area of finances. And in a couple of weeks, your campus pastor's already told you about this. We'll be making commitments where we're putting our financial yes to Jesus on the table for the next season of ministry. And as a person who's been disciples in this church for like the last 10 years, before I'm a pastor, before I'm on staff, before I'm a dad or a husband or anything, I am a son in the kingdom of God and I am a sheep following a good shepherd. In my family, we're praying over this. We made a commitment a year ago and we're asking God, God, do you want us to renew that and keep walking in faithfulness?

Do you want us to step into a new season of challenge for thousands and thousands of of people who now call our church home who weren't even a year ago, they'll be for the first time challenged to take this step of trust and obedience in Jesus. And let me just tell you, as someone who has been disciples through this, save one or two relationships, this kind of thing has been more formative a discipleship tool in my life than anything else. Jesus was not kidding when he said where your treasure goes, your heart will go also. He says, something goes first, and it is not your feelings. And I found this to be true that when I sow into the kingdom of God, my heart grows for the kingdom of God.

When I learned to trust Jesus in this way and I put my heart, as Jesus defines it, in his hands, my heart grows for the things of God. Are you surrounded with people who are generous? People who challenge you to different levels of generosity, who encourage you to be a giver, not just a consumer. I want to be generous because God is generous. Proverbs 11, chapter 25, says,

a generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. Don't you want to be the kind of person that is, it is good for your friends to call you friend. Number four, healthy boundaries. Healthy boundaries. Proverbs 25, verse 17, says, let your foot be seldom in your neighbor's house,

lest he have his fill of you and hate you. Yikes. This is serious. What the proverb is saying is don't overstay you're welcome. Don't be codependent. Pastor Jobi talks all the time about everybody needs some friends in their lives that have refrigerator rights. People that can come into your kitchen, they can go to your refrigerator, and they can begin to eat and drink, and you don't think anything about it. That's the kind of friend they are.

Do you know how you keep refrigerator rights? Use them sparingly. That's how you keep it, is you use them sparingly. Don't overstay. You're welcome. Time together and friendship is good, but too much time together can be tough. If someone sends a text or you send a text to someone and it goes unresponded to and that gets all your insecurities stirred up, it may be time for some new healthy boundaries in your life. My brother is one of my cornertoters.

He's one of my best friends and you would say, well, isn't that convenient? And I would say, well, yeah, I mean, I guess I'm stuck with him biologically and familiarly because he's my brother. but being in family with someone is different than choosing them as your friend. Right? I want my wife to choose me as her best friend over and over and over again. I don't want to just be somebody

that she lives with. Right? So just because he's my family doesn't necessarily mean he's going to be my friend. But my brother is one of my best friends and my brother and I, we served at the same church for one year. He's a pastor, I'm a pastor.

We worked together for one year. We realized really quickly that it was way better for us to cheer for each other in the kingdom than for us to work together in the kingdom. And we had to draw some healthy boundaries. Healthy boundaries are good for healthy living, amen. And number five, who do you want to be? Who do you want to have as a friend?

You want to be and you want to have people who follow Jesus. People who follow Jesus. Proverbs chapter 8, verses 35 and 36 says this, for whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. Who would say, I don't want God's favor on my life? Nobody. We want to be overcome with the favor of God. For whoever finds me, finds life and obtains favor from the Lord.

But he who fails to find me injures himself and all who hate me love death. Proverbs chapter 8 gives skin to wisdom and his name is Jesus Christ. He is the manifold wisdom of God on display for the world to see. and to know. Jesus Christ is the express character and nature of God. He is the way, he is the truth, and he is the life. And friendships, relationships that are centered on him are relationships where forgiveness can flow freely because it flows

freely from him. Or relationships where truth can be told and received because he is the truth. They're relationships where life can grow, where abundance can be experienced because he is the source of all very good things. Christians have an advantage against everybody else in the world against loneliness because Jesus is the greatest friend one could have. And you may say that sounds a little Sunday schooly, pastor, a little cheesy, and that may sound that way, but the only reason it would sound that way is if you have not

been walking in true friendship with Jesus. What a friend we have. What a friend we have. We choose him because he chose us, and he chooses us over and over again. John chapter 15 verses 12 through 15 Jesus says this and I'll close with this

he says this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you greater love has no one than this that someone would lay down his life for his friends

can we just praise God for Jesus Christ in this church this morning what greater love is this than a man would lay down his life for his friends. 1 John chapter 4.8 where it says God is love. It goes on to say this, this is how we know the love of God, that we know Jesus Christ and we live through Him.

This is the invitation to the abundant life. And then Jesus continues in John 15. He says, you are my friends if you do what I command you. If you do what I say, then we're friends. No longer do I call you service. for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my father,

I have made known to you. If you want your life to be filled with wisdom, fill it with Jesus followers. Fill it with Jesus followers. Jesus followers are not perfect people, but they are on the pursuit of someone who is perfect. They are not perfect people, but they are headed toward glory,

and they will live in perfection with the perfect king who is Jesus. So here's how we want to respond today. I would like for everybody at all of our campuses to grab a respond card, they're in the seat back in front of you. Grab a respond card, everybody. I see you're not grabbing respond cards. You reach forward.

It's in front of you. You pick it up. We're going to respond in one or two ways. First, write your name and a phone number and an email address. A name and a phone number is fine. We want to be able to follow up after this. If you are here right now and you cannot. answer this question quickly. Who are the people in your life that are pointing you toward Jesus

regularly? Who is pointing you toward Jesus regularly? What friendships do you have that are pointing you toward Jesus regularly? If you can't quickly answer that question with disciple making relationships, here's what I want to invite you to do. Write your name, email, and phone number, and then I want you to go right below the Connect section. It says join a disciple group. Discival groups are our church's way of helping friends to get together, grow in friendship, and better understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And you're not necessarily signing up for a disciple group, you're signing up to get more information about it. Somebody on our team will call you in the next 24 hours, and they will give you all the information about groups. We have groups that meet in people's homes.

If that's not for you, we have groups that meet on all of our campuses. If that's not for you, we have groups that are led by our campus pastors at each campus. we have all different kinds of groups, I promise we would have one that work for you. And ultimately, disciple groups are an invitation to friendship so that you can deepen your friendship with Jesus. You can be loved by people, and you can love others in Jesus' name. If you're not in a disciple group or in disciple making relationships, check that box. And then second, on the back, it says, please pray for. I know every person that calls the Church of 1122 home has at least one relationship that they

could use some brothers and sisters praying for. Maybe it's a broken relationship. Maybe it's a relationship that's been suffering from anger or from distrust. Maybe it's a new friendship or a new relationship and you want to pray God's blessing on it. Maybe it's an old friendship that you need to rekindle and begin to speak life into. Maybe it's your one more, the person that you're praying for, that they would encounter the love of Jesus and surrender their lives to him. Whatever it is, we'd invite you to write this because we want to pray with you. We want to pray for you.

What's the worst thing that happens? God's people start praying for each other and God starts moving. God responds to the prayers of his people. We want you to be in healthy Jesus-soaked relationships. And we want to pray about that. So for the next two minutes, normally at this time I would invite us to stand

when I say amen, but for two minutes, we just want you to write. And our teams are going to sing a song over you and then they will invite you to respond as we normally do. I'm going to pray and say amen. We're going to sit and write our prayers, and then our teams will give us instruction across the campuses. Father, we love you, we need you, we are known by you, and we want to

know you on the deepest levels. Jesus, we thank you for your friendship. We thank you that you are the sovereign king of the universe, and yet you have called us friends. I thank you for my brothers and sisters here. I pray that our lives would be filled with the favor of God and the form of relationships. Then we would know you, we would trust you, and we would experience you through each other. Father, we pray that you would help us to pray the things that bless your heart and to be stirred with thoughts of you as we respond to the good news of your word. We thank you that you meet with us consistently, and we thank you that we are loved, and it's the most important thing about us. We pray all these things in the wonderful and powerful name of Jesus, and all God's people said, amen. We're writing, and we're responding that way.

Our team will give more instruction.