Building Meaningful Friendships for a Thriving Life: Biblical Principles

[00:00:02]when you think about your future what do you picture at some point if you want to have a future you're going to need to write down what you want your future to be you can only seize you can only what you can see what you can see if you don't see anything in your future you have nothing to seize here's the thing I think you were wired up not just for a job or a career I think you were wired up for a calling there are blessings coming in you are blessed in the moment and you will be a blessing to the people around you but God is going to make sure that you're provided for too because he cares about you it doesn't say that God will supply your needs according to your needs it says that God will supply all of your needs according to his riches if you want a home God blesses there's the four things you need in order to finally see the happiness of God and the joy of God and the love of God and the peace of God and the grace of God finally transform every aspect of who you are your kids your marriage your stuff could all be different if you had the blessing of God he's always thinking of your destiny always is this good news picture this so who is that old guy hey Crossing Church how you doing I don't I don't watch myself on up on screen very often my gosh I'm getting old do you know I'm 41 now hey do you know next year our church is 10 years old next week yeah next week our church is 10 years old that's a big deal like we've been doing this a long time I started out I was like what would that make me so I was 31 when we started this I must have been crazy to start this at 31 holy cow God's done a good good good work in 10 years hasn't he awesome awesome we are in a series called picture this everybody say picture this picture this and what we are talking about is picture ing the future that you want to see what do you see in your future seriously we're going to talk to you about friendship a little bit we're going to talk to you about why we choose the friends we have why like how do I make real friends all that kind of good stuff but to kind of get us rolling to get our head in the game a little bit uh anybody else like movies I I'm I'm a movie I'm a movie fan like seriously like uh the like I I go to a lot especially in the winter because I can't fish because everything's about fishing but then when you get to the winter like all I can do like to like make myself like have a good day like on my day off or something like go to I got to go to movies so several years ago this is a an older movie maybe you've seen this maybe you haven't I'm going to be a total spoiler alert how many of you seen the movie Into The Wild can I see your hands okay so it's going to come up on the side screens um so this is the a story of a guy named Chris mcandless uh and Chris was either a Harvard or a Princeton grad I mean had like a really good privileged life graduated from college and decided to move like Off the Grid like he decided to like that's an actual picture of him um uh he moved off the grid decided like I don't need friends I don't need people I'm going to do life alone and so he decided he's going to go from the East Coast someplace and he's going to backpack and hitchike all the way to Alaska and going to live in the Alaskan Wilderness by himself and so he kind of hitchhikes Across America ends up uh in Alaska ends up living like extremely alone out in the middle of nowhere runs out of food has to start eating plants to survive so he's like looking for plants and he gets a hold of the wrong plant spoiler alert it is poisonous and he slowly starves to death in the woods because he's eating the wrong plantet he can't get nutrition any longer and like he's like and as he's like slowly over a couple of weeks he knows he's dying and he can't get back to civilization and he's all alone he writes a journal and they turned it into a book called into the wild and the book was phenomenal and they took parts of his journal and this this researcher like researched the story and interviewed all the people in the book and like and eventually he turned this into this phenomenal story of somebody's life except for this one problem with the whole story at the very end of both the movie and the book um his very last sentence in his journal is profound and it's what I want to preach to you about today his final sentence his final thought as he's dying this the last thing he ever writes alive is this sentence right here happiness only real when what shared when shared amen that you cannot have a happy life if you don't have somebody to share it with the human beings were built we were built for connection for relationship for connection with other people and friendships and and something and community and if we don't find this we can never truly be happy on the other hand in order if you could actually find some deep authentic meaningful real relationships you could find a way in which to thrive in life where before man maybe you did okay but you're going to do really really well it took this guy his deathbed to figure out what matters most that's relationships look at the person next you and say relationships matter most and so what I want to have a conversation with you today is how do I cause my relationships to succeed so that I actually Thrive and have a happy life would you like to have a happy life okay raise your hand if you want a sucky life come me see your hands oh I want a sucky life yeah that's me no nobody nobody ever raises their hand for this here's what I would tell you at the end of your life you're going to die Happy Thoughts by Pastor Eric you're going to die it's just true right at the end of your life and the only thing that people will celebrate after you've passed away is either your accomplishments or your relationships they're going to celebrate what you've accomplished in Life or they're going to celebrate the relationships that you had and how well you love people and and the friendships that you had and they're going to remember oh man it was so cool we got to do this and we got to do that and you're going to either have something to they're going to celebrate something or not based on whether you invested in your relationships so relationships matter if we can't figure out relationships we're never going to live happy and what's interesting just check this out for a second there's a book written a couple years ago called uh uh bowling alone and a researcher studied American men all different races all different ethnic backgrounds all different social economic backgrounds and came to the same conclusion that the average American man does not have one actual real authentic connection with another human being another another man like besides his wife he has zero friendships and you're like what is how how can that be possible go back to the 1950s everybody had front porches like like everybody had like those those little those cool little houses with the front porch everybody's got sat on their front porch and their friends would come like their their neighbors would drive home at night and you'd wave at the neighbors and they wave back at you and then and they pull in their driveway and then you guys would like hang out together you knew each other's stories and you did relationship together and then it seems like we got rid of our front porches more in favor of garages on the front of our houses this seem like the average like the average like Community today has like a garage on the front of their house and so you drive home in the end of the day and you punch the garage door button and the garage door opens up and you drive in the garage and the garage door shuts behind you and you never even talk to your neighbors you don't know their stories you don't know their situations you don't know their struggles and so we tend to do Life by ourselves when God never created this for us he created us to do life together are you with me so far yes and so what I want to do is teach you about a concept about how we can begin to do life together again I gave you a not she can you get it out hold it up for me wave it at me wave it at me wave wave this thing at me because here's the thing I don't care if you're 16 or 75 if you don't figure out relationships life's going to suck for you if you figure this out you could have something really healthy for the rest of your life and so what I want to do is I want to teach you about relationships I'm going to give you the premise of the whole talk I want you to write this down for me right at the top of the sheet of paper I want you to write this down in order to thrive everybody say in order to thrive we need to be connected in real authentic everybody say authentic auth that is not a Facebook friend just because somebody liked your Instagram post doesn't mean you're friends do you know they've done studies on Instagram Facebook and Twitter and they have discovered that when people think their relationships are wrapped up in social media that they actually are more lonely and more depressed because they think it's going to feed their their their need for connection but it never really follows through so you're like feeding it all the time and all the time I got to get this connection I got and it never really happens it's always inauthentic relationship in order to thrive we need to be connected in real authentic friendship with other people others need to know our Come on talk to me name have our cell number know our and be involved in our lives yeah do you have people like this that have your cell number know your name know your story and be involved in your life now here's the thing we come to church and we think hey you know what I I I know that guy's face and I know this person's face and so we kind of have a little bit of relation I would tell you this when you go to work or go to school or go to church uh when you go to those environments and you don't know their story their name they're involved in their life and you don't have their son L you're not really friends what we call friendship in America isn't really friendship it's acquaintances and then when the crap happens when the crap hits the fan we're all alone we're like why am I all so alone why do I feel so desperate and I need help and there's nobody helping me and it's because we didn't invest in anything authentic so that when crap happens we've got nobody to help us through our crisis do this making sense I gave you some Lego can you get the Lego out I gave everybody a piece of Lego can you get the Lego hold it up yeah there a little piece piece of Lego I want you to look at your Lego for a second it's got all kinds of snaps now here's the thing we gave you random pieces of Lego today you know why because some people uh this is how this works like there there's this one's got lots of snaps on it this one's got a few snaps on it people are the same way some of you you like lots of relationships you want to be connected to lots of people you're like a puppy people people people don't put that on the probably too late I preached that last night too like some of you are really people people who who in here likes a lot of relationship cuz see your hands woohoo list is like me me pick me it's true on the other hand some of you need less relationships cuz people make you crazy you get around like you need a little bit of friendship and you need a little bit of relationship but you have a lot less snaps in your relational life like if you have too many snaps you're going to go nuts who would say like I like like I'm a little less relational can I yeah yes more of you it's just true like the reality is this some people need a lot of relationship some people need less relationship but all of us need relationships in order to thrive like Lego like Lego we need to be built and connected with other people in order to create something beautiful in order for you to have the life you want and to thrive the way you want you've got it aside I need to be built up in the right set of lives in the right set of people so that I can Thrive and they can Thrive and together we can have something good and we can celebrate a life together versus always feeling alone because happiness is only real when what sh when shared the Bible says the same thing this is Ecclesiastes chapter 4 it says this it says two people are better off then for they can help each other see you notice God wants you to succeed look at the person next to you and say God wants you to succeed he does God want like after the last service a a a kid came up to me he's 18 he's like I think I want to become a Christ follower I want to follow God I I think I want this Faith thing he said but I have a question um if I give up my rights and I follow God uh how do I know that God's going to be good to me and that's a fair question and I would tell you a verse like that tells you that God's got your success at heart he wants you to thrive he wants you to go further he has a Destiny and a future and a plan for you he's not thinking ha follow me I'll mess you up that's not God God wants you to thrive so he says two are better off than one because they'll help each other succeed if one falls down the other can reach out and help but someone who falls alone is in real likewise two people lying close together can keep each other warm I just read that into the text I don't think it actually means that just seem good throw that in but how can one keep warm alone a person standing alone can be attacked and defeated but two can stand back to back and what that's what you want you want a friend that is so with you that when life is crappy they are backto back defending you to other people you're in such close relationship you can expose your back to them and you know they're not going to stab you in the back that they're with you in crisis and hardship and pain and difficulty and good days they're celebrating with you you need an authentic real lasting friendship this is what everybody on Earth craves beginning of the Bible by the way God said it is not good for man to be alone see God knows it and so he said I want to build this in you I want to create relationships for you so that you can succeed and so today I want to talk to you about relationship so that your life can Thrive can we get to work and do it yes awesome here's are the three questions we're going to ask today why do we need real authentic connection why do we need this why don't we have this what happened in 2014 that we lost this when it seems like we used to have it and then how do we develop something real again you ready to get to work let me pray and we'll do it Jesus thank you for what you're going to do in this room thank you for every life I thank you that I get to be a part of this great church that is changing people's lives I thank you for your grace and your goodness I pray that you would Empower us to be people who Thrive by your grace by your goodness by your mercy build people up in Jesus name we pray everybody said am amen so we're just going to start real simple first question why do we need real authentic connections number one write this down we need other people because we need the camaraderie everybody say camaraderie that's not a word we use very often camaraderie what do I mean by that I mean this ever been hanging out with a couple dudes and you're like like guys in here like you're like dude we need a guys night oh my gosh we need a guys night we need to get together we need to have like a big bonfire we need to like grill a whole bunch of meat we smoke some cigars and maybe drink a couple beers and like hang out like we just need a guys night who's had that that conversation before c of your hands because you actually need this you need to get away from the women sometimes like I just you she gave me a dirty look not really she just messed with me but but seriously on the opposite side ladies same thing there needs to be moments in your life where you're like I just need to get together with my girlfriends we just need to get away we need to go do something together and there's something about camaraderie that builds each other's Spirits if we don't have somebody to go do something like that with we don't Thrive nearly as much there was a study done in 2005 of adults who were 70 and older and it was interesting because these adults come from all kinds of different backgrounds some of them smoked and are still in their 70s alive some of them drank too much some of them were healthy some of them not so healthy totally different perspectives of backgrounds but here's the study about relationship research has followed nearly 1500 people over the age of 70 for 10 years from 70 to 80 and the people with the strongest network of good friends what's the last two words live longer because even though you might have some dysfunctional bad habits something about relationships Sometimes counteracts some of that negative bad habit and hopefully in the course of those relationships they're going to get you out of those bad habits too but the truth is we need some camaraderie in order to actually live a good thriving life you with me so far number two we need authentic relationships because we need each other because circumstances get difficult life gets hard doesn't it look at the person next to you and say man my life gets hard sometimes now the truth of the matter is this when life really gets hard we're not laughing about it the wind gets knocked out of our sails the rug gets pulled out from underneath our feet the the we get knocked off at the knees and we're like I don't know what I'm going to do and if you don't have somebody next to you holding your hand giving you a hug telling you it's going to be okay it isn't going to get okay without healthy connection 10 years from now you're not going to be able to make it because our connections cause us to thrive and life is hard guys isn't it and sometimes things happen that you never expected and you never thought were going to occur and if we don't have these relationships around us the chance of us succeeding on our own is really small Rambo only works in the movies right guys by themselves don't make it very long we need a Band of Brothers we need a group of sisters that cause us to thow cuz life gets difficult right third thought we need each other because our faith gets crushed we need each other because our faith gets crushed and now I'm going to be straight up man like so when difficult things happened and you're like I mean you're down and out you're like down for the count like boom like I don't like like you feel like you are knocked out and like like what do I do now and like all of a sudden your faith feels like I don't have I don't even know if I have faith anymore anybody's ever felt like they're not sure if they have faith anymore CU see your hands yeah if if if you don't have your hand up it's because you've not gone really hard yet but I've been there I don't know if I'm going to keep this faith I don't know if I got faith any longer but all of a sudden if you've got somebody whispering in your it's going to be okay God's got a plan for you God's got a Destiny for you God's got a future for you he hasn't given up on you he hasn't forgotten you I know life is hard but it's going to get better cuz God's for you not against you you're going to succeed you're going to overcome you're going to make it cuz God is good just keep walking in faith if you've got somebody like this in your life you're going to make make it amen that's right right that guy thought it was good for real when you have this you can Thrive your faith can continue to move forward because somebody else is feeding you hope in my worst situations in my worst moments of Despair it was the people around me that kept my faith alive and if I had not check this out if I had not invested when life was good in those relationships I wouldn't have anybody to say anything when life was bad so here's the thing we're like oh life is good what do I need friends for you don't need them till you need them so if you don't invest if you don't plant some seeds of friendship in other people when life is awesome when life is crappy life going to get crappier cuz you're all by yourself right is this connecting with you yeah everybody say we need to make some connections con so why don't we have these real authentic relationships why like we talked about why we need them but why why don't we have them second question I want to ask today why why don't we have them and here's the way I would start this start to answer this question I actually got together some people and I said let's brainstorm for a second why people's lives are so jacked up and nobody's friends anymore like let's just talk about this for a second we just kind of like brainstorm this a little bit and I got feedback I was just texting people and say what do you think about this and how's that work and like so they started giving me some feedback and we came up with answers I'm sure there's lots of answers but we came up with four first answer we came up with is this it's easier to have fake connections on social media than real authentic friends it's easier to have fake connections on social media to go I liked your Instagram photo which makes our ego feel good because I have X number of followers on in I have X number of followers on Twitter I have X number of followers on Facebook but the reality is those are not real friendships and when our investment is is here versus in across the table or sitting by a bonfire or having a conversation with people with real skin on we cannot succeed you need people with skin none of those zombie people for real like you you you've got to have a relationship with a real living human being and you have to make time for this in order for your life to thrive with me so far now I'm not down like down on social media cuz I got Twitter account and all of it but what what like I'm just saying those are like don't don't trust those those are not real friendships real friendships are the people that you know and do life with secondly it's hard to trust other people isn't it so you're like man so I got these connections I'm like a Lego I'm like a Lego thing and I gotta like get connected and build a life and so you found this dude or you found this this this group of friends you're like oh this is going to be awesome so you began to make this connection and it felt really really good for a while and then they stab you in the back they lie about you and they mistreat you and disrespect you and so now I'm going to stop and say something harsh and I don't mean it harsh but I'm really trying to get get you to think okay everybody's a jerk sometimes everybody you will not find the perfect person to be connected to so at some point or another they're probably going to stab you my my best friend in the whole world is sitting right there on the front row Kelly is my very best friend we fight side by side sometimes we fight back to back and sometimes we fight face to face that's just life so get over the fact that you have been hurt and decide to have something beautiful for real I know you got hurt I've been hurt I've had people stab me in the back and lie about me and slander me and do all kinds of stuff but at some point you got to decide I'm going to have relationships I'm going to thrive my connections are going to be good I'm going to have a beautiful life even if they don't amen right it's available God wants you to have something significant in terms of friendship third thought it takes too much time to develop real connections doesn't it that means I got to go to your kids's birthday party dang it if she's leading the party it probably would be fun for real if it's it it just takes a lot of time and energy and here's what I want to tell you busy is the enemy of relationship busy is the enemy of relationship you've got to decide if relationship is what matters most in life I need to build into my schedule time to be with people and to be involved in their life and in their world and in their scenarios and in their stories because if I don't invest when life is good they're not investing me when my life is bad I'm planting seeds you're going to reap a harvest of the seeds you plant with relationship and if you don't plant seeds of positive relationship in other people's lives there's nothing for them to feed back to you when life is rough number four it's easier to be friendly than be than to be a real friend it's easier to be friendly than to be a real friend what do I what do I mean by that I mean this this is what we do when we come to church or you get to to work uh or you get to school you're like hey man how's it going what's up and you like the fist pound or the high five or you talk for a second and you kind of sort of know that guy's face because you know he works here right or you know she's a part of this thing that you go and see or maybe she's a part of the church or like whatever and what you do is you do the high five friendly thing but you don't actually develop anything further friendliness and friends are two different things I would say this is a friendly church but that doesn't mean you have any friends here does that make sense when you come in the door to people wave at you and say hello does that mean you have friends no friendship requires something further it's much deeper and more Dynamic and more authentic than hello how's it going hope life is treating you well peace out so here is my connect my my my question this is this is what we're going to get to how do we actually begin to develop something authentic how do we begin to do this because this is the thing like I think I I I pretty much created the problem in your head how many of you with me so far put your hands up so some of you are like okay well how do I get past that and get something good how do I get like seriously I have some really really deep committed authentic friendships with some other people how did I get that how did how did I get there what occurred in my life so that that began to develop this is what I want to talk with you about I'm going to give you two verses of scripture about the most dynamic authentic friendship in all the Bible it's the story of in the Old Testament about a uh two dudes named Jonathan and David everybody say Jonathan and David and here's How The Story Goes you know who David is David is the guy that killed the giant with a slingshot who know what I'm talking about okay so David kills the giant with the slingshot and then it's pretty interesting because this Prophet dude comes over to David and dumps oil on his head and goes you're going to be the next king man God's like I've got a word from God God tells me you're going to be the next king now what's weird is the king presently is name is Saul and Saul's son is a dude named Jonathan Jonathan is next in line for the throne he's going to be king next and then this stupid Prophet comes along and makes somebody else King next you think this would cause a rivalry cause a little friction like I'm supposed to be king and you're taking my spot man and instead it doesn't cause rivalry it causes friendship somehow Jonathan realizes if I'm going to succeed I need to be in friend friendship with this dude who's going to be King and not oppose him cuz if I oppose him life's going to be worse sometimes you're threatened by other people those are probably the people you should be friends with why are you threatened because they're succeeding they're going further they're accomplishing more when you are threatened by somebody who's accomplishing something then you're not going to accomplish anything you've got to decide I'm going to embrace and this is what what Jonathan and David do they Embrace friendship when they should have been Rivals with me so far two verses of scripture about their life and they're going to give you four thoughts and we're done here's the first verse of scripture 1 samel 18:1 the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David and Jonathan loved him as his what own soul Who's heard the phrase soulmates before can I see your hands we usually think about this in terms of who we marry but this verse is about a friendship that is so connected and so authentic authentic and so real that they function as soulmates in terms of friendship they they have each other's back they know each other's story They Know Each Other's situation they're guarding each other's life in such a way that they're like soulmates how does somebody get that kind of friendship that's what we want second passage of scripture is going to tell you how they got that this is 1 Samuel 2315 to18 it says this one day near hores David received the word or the news that Saul was on the way to zff to search for him and what kill him so imagine waking up and this is David's story David gets up in the morning he's like checking his email he checks book checks his email and checks his Twitter and realizes oh my gosh both Twitter and Facebook and email say there's a dude who's going to chop my head off today this is a bad day and so Jonathan gets up in the morning and Jonathan reads the same Twitter account and the same Facebook me message and he's like oh my gosh like my dad's going to go kill David today and so um here's other Story Goes next Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him and and encouraged him to stay strong in his what faith in God and then he goes on says this don't be afraid Jonathan reassured him my father will never find you you were going to be the king of Israel notice he puts himself aside and I will be next to you as as my father Saul is well aware so the two of them renewed their solemn pack before the Lord then Jonathan returned home while David stayed in hores there are four thoughts about deep real authentic friendship In this passage that if you could take this to heart you could get a relationship like that that is significant and lifelong and somebody got your back and not stabbing you in the back can I show you these four here's the first one number one we take the initiative everybody say I take the initiative ini we take the initiative 1 Samuel 2316 the passage starts out by saying Jonathan went here's what I'm telling you check this out check this out this is I maybe you've heard this before man I don't got any friends nobody's friendly I go to school and nobody talks to me I stand over there in the corner by the lockers and nobody even says nothing to me I I want to laugh and go victim victim victim I don't have any friends I don't have any friends you are in charge of your own life the more you decide other people have to come to me in order to be friends the more you'll never have them if you want to have friends you must take the initiative you got to decide I'm going to go find somebody to connect with and be a part of their life and and to know their name and know their story and know their situation here's the thing so lots of times uh I have some really good pastoral friends across the country like some good significant leader friends across the country people are like Pastor Eric how do you know these people and are involved in their lives how do you get friendship like that and I said I just called them and called them and called them not like a stalker but like but like I just like that guy is going further than me I want to know him that guy is going farther he's accomplishing more what's he doing I want to know his story I want to know his situation I want to be involved in his life and so I kept calling and calling and calling and eventually they returned my phone call and I'm like hey can I get a meeting with you awesome we got a meeting together and when I showed up in the meeting I brought a gift why because gift makes way for the giver proverb says and then I I'm sitting there in the meeting I'm not saying here's my problems I'm saying I'm saying tell me about how I can help you succeed further and I begin to plant seeds in these leaders lives and the more seeds I planted in their lives the more they began to invest back in me and invest back in me and invest back in me but I took the initiatives and I built great relationships all across the country with people who are succeeding because I decided I was going to stop complaining you don't have any friends and decide I'm going to do whatever it takes to invest in the lives of other people so that I am thriving and not failing are you with me so far yes this is the Proverbs proverbs 18:24 a man that has friends must what huh must show himself friendly a man that has friends is really good at like standing in the corner of the room and hoping somebody will come talk to me right no now some of you were like but you're not as weird as me no I'm weirder I a weird dude man somebody last night said to me you look like a math teacher this weekend and I was like awesome and like an 80s math teacher right why is my hair like this why am I dress I don't know I'm just weird but I have really good friends see I I'm telling you it doesn't make a difference how weird you are what your idiosyncrasies are what your background is if you decide to take the initiative you can develop great friendships are you with me okay secondly number two we are selective everybody say I am selective here's the here's How The Story Goes 1st Samuel 23:16 it says Jonathan went to go find Who David he didn't go find his drug dealer right see here's how friendship Works in modern America because we tend to be insecure people we go well who's ever around me and paying attention to me is my friend and then we end up with messed up lives when you decide to be friends with who's ever around versus becoming selective you'll never have great friendships and the friendships you do have are going to probably take you someplace terrible versus someplace good because you're not thinking I need to be here's how this worked actually I had a pastor friend said say this to me he said think about your relationships for a second are they Eagles or are they chickens what do you mean an eagle's going to soar man they're going to fly higher and higher and higher and higher are the people you're hanging out with people who are going to soar and fly higher or they chickens they're all down in the dirt my life is terrible everything sucks I can't do for real the I I've said this a million times in this church hopefully you've heard me say it if I haven't this will be the first this is good for you to hear show me your friends and I will show you your fure future say that with me show me your friends show your and I will show you your future right now the people that are the five closest people you have just like you have five fingers the five closest people you have in your life right now are going to determine your next five years why because that's where you get your wisdom and counsel and advice and and understanding in life from you get it from the five people closest to you so if you are not selective rather than soaring you're gonna sink does this make a sense this is Proverbs Chapter 13:20 walk with the wise and become associate with fools and what trouble how about get handcuffs some of you know exactly what I'm talking about it's true cuz the people you surround yourself with determine your destiny and John looked around and was like man David's going far I can either be threatened by David or I can decide to walk with David cuz if I walk with David I'm more likely to succeed than to fight David secondary verse proverbs 23 12 vers 26 says this a righteous man and you are totally what in Christ you're totally righteous in Christ a righteous man is cautious in Friendship another words this you have enough self-confidence self-respect and dignity that you don't have to be friends with everyone that you're going to be careful with your friendships in order to make sure the people that you surround yourself with are going to cause you to succeed and not fail now some of you are like but what about like some of you are thinking about your connections you're like no like but I'm connected to the wrong people like what am I supposed to do and I'm like like first of all not be mean to them that's not what we do we just have to figure out a way to like slowly carefully try to not hang out quite so much with these people cuz they make me crazy right I didn't say call them crazy or treat them with a lack of now this I've done this before like maybe five years ago the last time I did this in church but if this helps good so I believe in our world there are two Circles of relationships there is a circle of concern everybody say concern and then there is a circle of influence everybody say influence now I'm going to mess with the rest of it here if this makes you feel better meaning this because I am a follower of Jesus Christ I'm to be concerned about everybody I'm to care about their situations and their stories I should help people no matter how dysfunctional they are I should treat them with respect and Grace and honor and kindness and blessing and see how can I help and how can I help and how can I help and how can I help it is what we're called to do in faith to treat people with Grace and kindness and respect concern with me so far but there's a secondary Circle this is my circle of influence only a certain group of people get to influence me when we talking about connection and relationship I'm not talking about a circle of concern lots of people you can be concerned about care about their story care about their situation help them out as best you can but circle of concern and circle of influence are two different things do not put people in circle of influence that aren't going to influence you to soar remember Jesus chose 12 and then of his 12 he chose three circle of influence concerned cared about a lot of people healed them helped them blessed them loved them but his influence group was a lot smaller do you see this so once again I'm going to tell you be selective everybody say be selective selective now I'll get you to a third one number three we make it our purpose to strengthen each other's faith we make it our purpose to strengthen each other's faith meaning this so what is the purpose of your relationship so you're connected with other people what is the purpose we get together in fish man we're drinking buddies how well is that going to help you succeed just asking the question man because remember every relationship is either causing you to soore or sink well we've been buddies since high school why what's this relationship built on see the verse said Jonathan shows up to talk to David and he strengthened his faith in God now what's interesting is I don't like that translation as much this is the New Living Translation um that's what we usually preach from in church easy translation to understand uh the translation I like to study on my own is is usually the new King James version and here's how the new King James writes this story this is 1st Samuel 23:16 it says this when Jonathan Saul's son arose and went to David in the woods and strengthened his what hand in God he strengthened his hand I love that phrase you know know what that tells me um think about this think about life like a game of poker you got to play the hand your delt you're going to get dealt some crappy hands you got to choose to play the hand you can't get somebody else's hand you got to play your hand but the truth is if you got the right person next to you all of a sudden your hand's a lot stronger all of a sudden man I can play these cards and I can still succeed cuz I got the right person next to to me so of course I'm going to go further and go farther cuz seriously say this straight up somebody else has been dealt worse cards than you and they're winning with them somebody else has been dealt a lot worse cards than you and they're winning with them so you play the hand you're dealt but if you can get somebody next to you with a strong faith and a strong determination and a strong love for God who's going to push you and Empower you and strengthen you and give you hope and blessing and greatness that if you got somebody speaking that over your life my gosh you can play that hand and you're going to still win see the purpose of friendship was to make sure that you thrived in order to thrive you need to keep your faith well why because if you lose your faith you lose your hope and if you lose your hope you've lost your destiny does that make sense on the other hand if you surround yourself with people of faith who are going to be like I know it was it's I know it sucked for you I know it was hard I know it was difficult but you stay at it you keep the faith you walk strong and confident and Tall because God's got a plan and a Destiny and a future and a goal and a hope and a a dream for you he's got this for you when you got somebody Whispering that in your ear by the way I shout this at you every weekend it is different to have somebody sitting next to you than somebody shouting it from a stage I can encourage you for a minute the person next to you will encourage you for a lifetime do you see the distinction so many people lose their faith because they come for a while and they got me shouting faith and blessing and greatness and courage and Destiny into their life and they're like yes yes I want that but they have nobody else shouting it next to them and so they eventually their faith shrinks you have to choose to find somebody else with a strong committed passion this is this actually this is actually true some people like how did you end up with the with the girl you married and that's why I tell people all the time um uh when I was 18 I decided I wasn't looking for the hot girl I wanted a hot girl to be honest but what I decided I was primarily after was a person of strong faith because I was looking for a power couple to change the world that's what I wanted I wanted a power couple I wanted somebody who's going to walk next to me when life is difficult and she's going to tell me it's okay we're going to make it it's going to be awesome we got a future we have a calling we've got something to accomplish I want somebody walking next to me with her head held high with strength and determination and Grace and love and power I wanted somebody like that so when I was looking for somebody to be a to be connected to for life that's what I was looking for and I got that I have that in Kelly some of you like but I don't have that in my spouse here's what I can tell you if you don't have it in your spouse you need to find it in somebody else so that you can build your marriage because otherwise your marriage will cause you to sink rather than thrive you need somebody next to you in a marriage that's going to cause you to SAR so you got to find a friend outside of your marriage another guy that's going to say it's going to be okay eventually your wife's going to get this and she's going to grow she's gonna she's going to follow Christ she's gonna she's going to get this faith and you're going to walk side by side or you're gonna find a find find a girlfriend ladies that's that's going to give you and Empower you and strengthen you and give you hope and Destiny and a future so that even when he doesn't believe you're going to still push back into him and push back into him and push back into him in such a way that he starts to grow and he starts to rise cuz your family is going to believe because you stayed in faith amen that's right see our connections matter and our connections need to be built on something bigger than they're my drinking buddy or my fishing buddy or my golfing partner still with me so who are you connected to that's actually building your faith and not just somebody that you know and then last and final question I got to be done or last and final thought we help each other by reminding each other of the promises of God last thought we help each other by reminding each other of the promises of God I want you to notice 1st Samuel 23:17 this is the last verse we're going to study today this weekend it just says this 1 Samuel 2317 sayso not be afraid Jonathan reassured him my father will never ever find you and then he says something interesting you are going to be what king of Israel what's what what's going on here here's what's going on Jonathan knew Jonathan knew that earlier this this uh Prophet named Samuel had come and gone and poured out some oil on David's head and said you're going to be the next king Jonathan knew that there was a promise over David's life and so when David was like oh my gosh they're going to kill me Saul's going to kill me he's like no they're not cuz God's got a plan for you I know the promises of God and they're good and they're strong and they're powerful and I'm reminding you of this you're going to make it you're going to overcome know and follow the promises of God don't give up trust the Bible trust the word trust the faith because you're going to be just fine this is what you needed a friend who is reminding you of the promises that are here this whole book shouting at you you are deeply loved and God is Not Forgotten you you are highly favored even when you go through hard times favor is falling on you it's coming your way walking this kind of Faith cuz if you lose your faith you lose your hope if you lose your hope you lose your destiny you're greatly blessed you are totally righteous this book says so you are destined to Reign not destined to fail you are destined to be an overcomer you're destined to be victorious you were destined to rise Old Testament says God will make you the head and not the tail you will always be at the top and never at the bottom see this is the words of scripture over you who's putting this in your life see this is the value of healthy authentic real friendship because they're going to point you back to the promises they're going to point you back to the word they're going to point you back to what God has already spoken and when you walk in this you walk to a Destiny and a future is this good news so now I I got to be done um and so I want you get the Lego pieces that one more time just one more time got them I'm hoping that you keep these for a while why cuz you're going to go to work tomorrow and I want you to think about who you're connected to you're going to go to school tomorrow and I want you to think about who am I connected to and right now I want you to think about this church and you've been a part of it for a while or maybe for only a short time but I would ask you the question who are you connected to what if you took the initiative to not leave until you made a real significant authentic connection you found somebody's name you knew their story got their cell number you know their life situation and you begin to develop some Roots do you planted seeds now for then when life is tough you're going to reap a harvest so we didn't want to just theoretically talk to you about this we wanted to give you something practical so I'm going to invite Pastor Kelly to the stage can you give it up for pastor Kelly and the sermon isn't over yet we want to take it from Theory to reality for you and so we're going to invite you to try something to do an experiment with us to see if this might actually build something in you to take this further than just oh it's a good idea if I have a friend and actually consider trying to initiate the process and make one so I hope you listen to what she has to say and then maybe some of you will try this because you could go further if you know the right people I I said this last night I didn't say said it all the day until just right now the world really is about who you know so you're like oh it's just about who you know it is maybe you should take some initiative and know the right people it's good peace out I'm done thank you