Proximity

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 It was the first day At California Baptist University, I, it was that morning, I had to say goodbye to my girlfriend who is now my wife. And we had a tearful goodbye because we decided to do the long distance thing because we didn’t want to be broke our whole lives.

So, it was just my student loan debt we had to take. That afternoon, I moved all my things into a tiny little dorm room. And I met my roommate, and I say this with all affection. Think of Screech. Anybody know Screech? This is him to the T, okay? And so I met my roommate, Screech. And that evening, we were all taken into a gym.

This was the new student orientation. And it was time to say goodbye to your parents. And that summer, just a few weeks before this event, Toy Story 3 came out. Any other Toy Story 3 fans in the house? Amen. And I like to say I’m Andy because it fits the plot line. Toy Story 3, he goes to college the same year I go to whatever, you know.

And, uh, the worst thing ever that they do. Is they have everybody come in and then they show the clip. You know what I’m talking about? The clip from Toy Story 3 where Andy says goodbye to Woody and Buzz. I’m about to cry right now, you know? And leaving. We see this and literally they turn on the lights and say, say bye to your parents.

And they leave, and we’re stuck in the gym. And so I’m here trying to take it, you know, I’m a man, right? But I’m like, Mom, you know, and everybody else, they’re all from Riverside. So they’re like, see you tomorrow. Me, I’m like, see you in Christmas. You know, cause you live six hours away. It was a lot to take in.

And so I went to my dorm room feeling lonely and scared, only to find when I go to my bed, under my pillow, is a Woody. The toy. My mom is not sentimental at all. This was crazy, but she decided, she thought in her infinite wisdom to put a woody on my bed would somehow make a 19 year old man feel loved and encouraged.

And so I start off the year embarrassed. I actually go, what are all the stages of grief? I go from sad to embarrassed to angry, like I don’t want to talk to my mom ever again. And so I’m thinking it’s going to be fine. I’m going to take my woody and I’m going to throw it onto Screech’s bed and act like it was Screech’s mom who gave him the toy, right?

Good plan. Only right before doing this, I look at the foot. And instead of A N D Y, it says T R E Y. This thing has my name written all over it. I can’t push this on anybody. And so my first day at CBU, I was on a mission to try to throw this thing in the trash and make sure a bunch of other things were on top of it.

So nobody knew that I brought my little Woody toy for the first day of college. The next few weeks were miserable for me. I missed my girlfriend. We had this thing called Skype back then. And it barely worked, and I was too introverted to make new friends. But fast forward to my last day at THE California Baptist University.

I played racquetball one last time with my best friend, and gave him a black eye just in time for him to walk across the stage to get his diploma with a huge black eye. And then walked across the stage myself, and after I said goodbye to my best friends. And those were the same best friends I was trying to hide Woody from that year, freshman year.

They all lived on the same hall as me in Smith Hall at CBU. And I shed more tears the last day than I did on the first day. And in reality for the next two years I entered into, I don’t know what else to call it, I entered into a depression. I vividly remember driving away from CBU, knowing my life would never be as fun again, never be as friendly again.

And I would often wake up in the middle of night with tears on my face, and it was, I called it not a nightmare, but a nostalgia mare. I’m tray marking that, okay? See what I did there? It’s a nostalgia mare where I am dreaming of a past memory. I dreamt of us playing racquetball or basketball one more time or going on Thunder Mountain and skipping out on tests.

All of those things that everybody does at CBU. And I would wake up crying because I knew those days were long gone. I felt really bad for my wife. She didn’t know what to do because I had a wife, guys. Like, this sounds terrible, doesn’t it? I was depressed. I was lonely. And yet, I had the wife of my dreams.

And we were expecting our firstborn child. And yet, I found myself very sad. All the time. Because I just knew I would never have those friends again. And my sadness wasn’t because I didn’t get to party anymore, I didn’t go to ASU, I went to CBU, and it was a Baptist school, so like, the best dance, we didn’t dance, okay?

Not even the Kevin James, Will Smith, we didn’t even, we weren’t allowed to do that. We weren’t doing anything crazy, but I believe it’s because, what I miss, why I was so sad is because our modern society isn’t designed for friendship. In fact, it’s designed for loneliness. Since 2017, America has been experiencing a decline in life expectancy and a lot of us knew that when 2020 came around, we were able to look at illnesses, but before that it was already happening and experts are finally realizing the main culprit is actually loneliness.

There are, there’s a huge mental illness crisis among young adults. A lot of people taking their life too soon. A lot of people getting hooked on drugs because there was no, they’re trying to fill a gap that only friends can fill. The percentage of Americans who say they have zero close friends has quadrupled since 1990.

54 percent report sometimes or always feeling that no one knows them at all. And it’s interesting, the digital age has us more connected than ever before, but sociologists are telling us Gen Z is actually the loneliest generation, hear me, of all time. Let alone chronic loneliness is more dangerous to your health.

This was a crazy stat to me. Hear me. Chronic loneliness is more dangerous to your health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day. What loneliness does is it creates this deadly cycle. You go to hiding, which then produces shame, which then produces isolation even more, and eventually that produces violence. And we wonder why there’s so much violence in our world today.

It actually is because of our loneliness. And again, who are these experts? But the experts say the most dangerous kind of loneliness is being a person who used to have friends. I think that’s many of us. I think it’s the only reason we miss high school, right? Why else would we miss high school? It’s be, you’re like, I’d never missed high school.

You’re like, we’re not connecting here. But it’s because we never. We no longer have friends, and that was absolutely the case for me. I experienced deep friendship, and I vowed never to be lonely again. And yet, for many years after college, the design of our lonely society was stronger than even my desire for deep friendship.

So here at Passion Creek Church, this is a vision series for us in January as we set the trajectory of 2024, and I want us to answer the question, what do we do about that? How can we make sure nobody in this room is lonely? And I believe the only thing that can outmatch the sway of a lonely society is the Spirit of God at work in a local church.

The local church is a counterculture. A few months ago, we mentioned this is what the church does. The world zigs and therefore we zag. We counter. We see what the world is doing. We look at the biblical text and intentionally pivot. We fight against it. And one fight that is taking way too many souls is the spirit of loneliness.

And we as a church can get together and get really intentional. And we can become a church that is designed not just to be known, but to be loved, to have friends who know you in your highest of moments and in your lowest of moments. That’s why, again, in 2024, our whole theme is how to make friends. and love other people.

Because here’s what I’m convinced. Friendship is common sense. If I were to, uh, when I was creating this sermon series, I was thinking through, I don’t need to, I don’t need to convince you, you should have friends. We all believe that’s common sense, but friendship is not common practice. Isn’t that interesting?

We all know we need it. How rare we actually do it. Turn with me to Genesis chapter two. Genesis really, as you’re churning there, 1 through 11 should be regularly read. And maybe this is, you had your New Year’s resolution, so maybe you’re in it right now. And it needs to be studied because what it does is it really shows God’s character.

It shows his design for creation. And then it shows how sin. Destroys and distorts that and if you read Genesis one through 11, you realize we need some save. We need something else. We need an escape. We need a savior. And that sets up the rest of the Old Testament to point to a coming savior. And again, the New Testament says Jesus is the one who will make all those things right.

So Genesis two. Let me Take back and go to Genesis 1. We read in Genesis 1, God creates over the span of six days and commonly ends each day by saying what? And it was Good. Good. Good job. You did it. Right? And it was good. And then after the sixth day, after he looks at all of creation, including the, uh, creation of mankind, what does he say?

It was very good. So as you’re reading the story, you’re thinking, good, good, good, very good. And that’s why Genesis 2, 18 should be like a record scratch. It should shock you. You should realize, here’s now the tension. Something is, is, is wrong here. What is happening? Look at verse 18 with me. Then the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone.

I will make a helper corresponding to him. You see it, good, good, good, good, good. Now it is not good. Verse 19, the Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. Hippopotamus, very, very inventive Adam, right? And whatever the man called the living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal. But. But for the man, no helper was found corresponding to him. Guys, I know you love your dogs, but there’s, there’s levels to this. Amen? Right? I shouldn’t have attacked dog lovers. This is over. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man and he slept.

God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. Now, a lot of people use this passage, of course, to talk about the beauty of marriage, but we also need to see even more fundamental to that is the beauty of friendship.

I want you to notice Adam was communing with God himself, Yahweh, in the Garden of Eden. He is with God, and yet there’s still something not good about his situation. I find that fascinating. He is with God, nothing separate. There’s no sin yet. There’s, he is with God and yet he is considered alone. I think this is such a good word because I think for us as Christians, we tend to think, man, just me and Jesus and we’re good.

Even right in the beginning of the book, it says, no, even it’s just you and Jesus, you’re missing something. You were created to have friends. We have to see this is before the fall. This is before sin. So Adam wasn’t lonely because he was sinning and desiring something he shouldn’t desire. No. Adam wasn’t dysfunctional here.

Adam was created to have other people in his life because he was made in the image of God. So, this is the theological category. Let me explain to you real quick. To be made in the image of God means that we mirror his shared So, theologically, there’s two different attributes when you talk about God. You talk about the incommunicable, can you say that?

Incommunicable, no. This dude goes, no, I can’t even say that. Incommunicable attributes, and then you have the communicable attributes. Queen Creek version, there are the unique attributes that aren’t yours. And then there’s the shared attributes. You got that? You can say unique, right? Alright. So, unique versus shared.

So let me give you an example. What are some unique attributes that only God has? God is the self-existent creator. He didn’t, He’s always, He’s outside of time. He’s fully eternal. And He creates. You and I, we’re creatures. Right? We’re totally dependent on God’s mercy. We can’t exist without God. God is infinite, right?

We are finite. Slowly but surely losing the battle to gravity. Anybody? Amen, right? We are finite. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere at all times. Me, I can’t even fully hear my wife when we talk. I’m not always there, right? We’re in one, that was supposed to be funny. You guys are really rough in 2024. We are only in one location.

Most of us aren’t even there, right? God is not us. He is other than. God is all-powerful. Maybe you need to hear that word today, friends. When we’re looking at our situations, a lot of us, we feel depression and dysfunction and we think there’s no way out because we’re only thinking about the power you and I possess.

But friends, the Word of God says that God is our refuge, and He is our what? Strength. And He is all-powerful, meaning God can deliver you from whatever situation you’re in this morning. Because He is not you, He is God. We need to hear that sometimes. But by the same token, we’re made in His image. It’s kind of, uh, a professor taught me, it’s kind of like a mirror, where God is the one with the full substance, and He is perfect, but He created mirrors, by which, and because of sin, that mirror has been shattered, but there’s glimmers where we reflect Him in certain attributes.

It’s not perfect, but we have certain desires, and we do certain things that show what kind of Creator we have. Does that make sense? So, in other words, God is infinitely wise, but you and I can what? We can grow in wisdom. God is truthful. You and I can increasingly be truthful and know truth. And here’s the big part here in Genesis 2, God is communal.

I’m not going to give a whole thing on the Trinity, that’s for Pastor Caleb right after the service. But it’s three in one. They’re distinguishable, but not, not separable. It’s like, where did Caleb go? He’s like, you’re like, I don’t know. Uh, he didn’t agree with it, I guess. I don’t know, go ask him after, right?

So, he is communal, and because of that, he created us where we desire community, and we have to grow into it as well. Timothy Keller for the win, he says the following. He says, if we’re made in God’s image, then it’s absolutely intrinsic to us. Therefore, the more you need friends, the more like God you are.

Christianity will say, the less you need friends. The less like God you’ve made yourself to be. Isn’t that good? See, friendship is all over the Bible. David is actually so close to Jonathan that we don’t have a category for it in modern day friendship and we tend to pervert it. Because we can’t imagine two men being that close together.

Jesus does ministry while in deep relationship with his disciples. I would argue a deep friendship. Paul, he takes his close friends like Barnabas and Timothy with him on his ministry campaigns and journeys and church planting. And the beautiful thing is you study the church history, the early church growth, uh, happened because of the radical inclusion of all of their neighbors.

Now, to recapture these lost relationships and live the way that God intended, we believe there is a process. So this series is going to be four weeks, and then we’re going to focus on it. All year, but there’s many steps to creating deep and abiding friendships. But the first step is simple. It’s just proximity.

To be with people is step number one. Now, that’s what’s hard about friendship. You don’t fall into friendship, right? You fall in love. Me, me and my wife, I fell in love with you, babe, here at this cafeteria. You don’t even remember me, but that’s fine, right? This is what happens, you fall in love, and typically that’s not even true either, being encouraged, right?

But you don’t fall into friendship, right? Friendship, what happens? It’s over a long period of time after you spend a lot of time together. I know for us, and um, I know Alexa’s checking in kids today, I know us in the parks. We, we were like hanging out for like two and a half years, just doing ministry, and we woke up one day and went, Oh!

We’re really good friends. Let’s go shooting together. It was weird, and ever since that day, Valentine’s Day 2019, we’ve been great friends. It’s weird. You don’t fall into it, it’s just kind of subtle, and then boom, hey, you, me, we’re friends. Uh, SCBU, those people I cried over, it’s not a coincidence that those were my friends, because hear me, I would not have picked those people to be my friends.

They memorized the Elvish language in Lord of the Rings. They were not going to be My friends, and yet I’m gonna have a chat with them on Friday. Not an elvish. I never learned They do that when they went to want to talk bad about me, and I’m just there all right when you’re done We’ll we’ll chat again, but now I wouldn’t trade him for the world That’s what friendships do and I think a lot of us have that lie We have to just hit it off right away that typically usually is not the case turn your Bibles now.

That’s Genesis Let’s go to Proverbs. It’s really towards the middle of your Bible, Proverbs 27, uh, if you didn’t bring your Bibles, it will be on the screen today and we’re totally cool with you using an app, however you need to get there, Proverbs chapter 27, uh, the Proverbs talks a lot, there’s a lot of different themes about wise living, one of them that’s consistent is Friendship, let me just give this tip if you want it to get into your bible more in 2024 There are 31 chapters and proverbs and so just look at whatever day of the week it is today is january 7th At least bare minimum Go to proverb 7 and read that you can read at least some of the bible.

You know what they say a proverb a day Keeps the devil away. All right verse 5 better an open reprimand Than concealed love The wounds of a friend are trustworthy, but the kisses of an enemy are excessive. Reminds me when Judas kissed Jesus to betray him, right? Jump down to verse 9. Oil and incense bring joy to the heart, and the sweetness of a friend is better than self counsel.

Don’t abandon your friend or your father’s friend, and don’t go to your brother’s house in your time of calamity. Better a neighbor nearby. than a brother far away. Verse 17, iron sharpens iron. We’re going to look at this a lot next week. And one person sharpens another. Let’s look at verse 9 and 10 again.

Oil and incense bring joy to the heart. Right? Sweetness of a friend is better than self counsel. There’s something sweet, there’s something so joyful about getting a good friend. And then he tells us, when you have that friend, don’t abandon your friend. Or your father’s friend, and don’t go to your brother’s house in your time of calamity.

So like, don’t go to your family’s house because they probably live super far away. Better a neighbor or some even say a friend nearby than a brother far away. What is the Bible’s formula? Just here in Proverbs for a sweet friendship. Among many things, write this down. Chemistry isn’t as important to friendship as proximity.

I know for me, I found the sweetness of friendship because I was too broke to move out of CBU and too dumb to get a job without a degree, right? So I had to stay at CBU. I was forced to figure it out. And I think the reality is for so many of our adults, if there’s no chemistry, we can just keep moving, keep leaving, never sticking it out long enough to see if there’s actually something here.

For me, I know my depression post-college didn’t go away until I realized this verse. Better a neighbor nearby than a brother far away. I realize those friends used to be the friends next door, but because they all moved and I moved back home, they became brothers far away. Right? And so some of us, we’ve had friends and it’s hard for us to get over this.

This verse is saying, okay, it’s great that you have friends far away and you can be connected kind of more than ever, but there’s something powerful about having people who are here. Who can see you, your face, who you actually do life with. This is huge because I believe when we nitpick, we miss God’s pick.

When we nitpick, we miss God’s pick. Who does God want you to be friends with? Who do you live by, right? Who’s in your local church? Be friends here. Jesus, he makes friends in the Gospels, and we’re gonna look at that in the coming weeks, but we can’t miss it, miss this. Jesus didn’t wait for the perfect people.

Jesus got in proximity with people who had all sorts of problems. What did Peter have? He had rage issues. Thomas? He constantly doubted. James and John, they had big egos. And yet, Jesus made friends with him. Your friends are typically the ones next to you, and we take them for granted. Hear me, here’s another reason I think we should have friends close by.

You give a foothold to the enemy when you don’t live in proximity.

Time and time again, I know I’ve been able to pastor this church for seven years now and it’s kind of weird how like physically it happens. You kind of notice people are unlike, I’m not, I’m trying not to call out a row. Uh, they’re like on the third row and then they go to the eighth row. They’re in the back row and they come once a month and then you don’t see them ever again.

And I’ve kind of learned to be mindful of that, not to be an attendance police at all. But really, it’s usually pointing to something. There’s like this lie of isolation that’s pulling them away. And I, you know, if you need to go to another church, go for it. But usually it’s because of a lie, and there is all sorts of just depression and sin happening.

And, and, and I typically, sometimes I reach out and it’s too late. Some of the lies that a lot of people believe and it pulls them away from others is things like their sexual identity, lies like you need more me time, so you need to step away from every single commitment. Lies like nobody loves you or appreciates you, nobody notices you when you’re around.

Lies like you feel worthless and all you can think about is shame when you come to church. These are lies from the enemy. There’s no truth to those things. And yet, when you don’t live in proximity, you’re not held accountable. You’re not being able to be, you’re not able to be called out on those lies.

What makes it really hard is those lies are being shouted and normalized from the rooftops in our culture. Getting me time has the appearance of the solution, but it is a death sentence to your life. The devil does what? He comes to kill, steal, and destroy. And his chief weapon is not a stick. It’s a lie.

And if we don’t live in proximity with people around us, there’s nobody who can rescue us from believing those lies. Ginny Allen in her book, find your people. It’s on a recommended read at formbyjesus. com Slash together. She talks about how we make the enemy’s job a whole lot easier when we isolate this could be physically emotionally spiritually She says the following she says the enemy wants us to live surrounded by people but never deeply connected to them So we don’t change We don’t grow We don’t even fully live and mostly end up stuck in self pity About how we don’t have any friends when dozens of people in front of us certainly would welcome someone Reaching out to them at the very least I’m telling you.

I think this is the biggest lie So we’re doing a whole series on making friends because this is the number one enemy Number one weapon of the enemy. I want you to mark down, kind of thinking through, what are some barriers for us in making friends and loving other people? And I think the first one is individualism.

We’re in a culture, it’s celebrated, it sounds logical, you just need you, you need to do you boo, right? All of those things, right? You don’t need them, stay away from those people, if they’re toxic, y’all, if everybody’s toxic, You might be the toxic one, you know what I’m saying? Like, if everybody’s calling you out, you need to get called out, amen, right?

So, individualism says, there’s no way! I will never think you’re right! I’m always right! And you’re going to be right, and you’re going to be lonely. Right? Individualism today, it sounds so not, I admit it, it sounds good! It’s full of lies and poison, it makes no sense according to biblical text, but it sounds good!

The second one I think happens to a lot of us at Bastion Greek Church is intimidation. You know what I love about our people? You know what I love about you? You love, like, deep conversations, and most of the people in this room hate shallow talk. Right? Anybody else? Right? You don’t even want to raise your hand because that’s a shallow thing to do?

I don’t know, right? And so it’s hard, like, where are you from? Okay, we’re going to go through this again, right? But guess what? That’s how you make friends! You got to do the shallow talk, small talk, you got to just get through it, you got to get through the awkwardness. Oh no, I forgot his name. Just say what’s your name, right?

Do those things. Should I admit this? I teach, uh, at a, uh, I teach Bible for junior hires, and it took like two months in, I finally realized. There’s two students, I don’t know their name, and now I need to grade. How in the world am I gonna do this? So I finally had to go up to them and say, How do you spell your last name?

Because friends, what if their name was Bob? Everybody knows how to spell Bob. But everybody’s got a weird last name. That’s, that’s free, okay? Use that. And they’re like, you’re the teacher. You don’t have my records. Well, let’s not talk about that. My computer’s not around me. How do you spell your last, anyways, that’s, that’s for free, but it’s intimidating.

Making friends is hard. It’s like, it’s like every day when you come to church, it’s like me. First day of CBU. Oh no, my, there’s a woody in my pillow. You know? Or what sneaking You see what I did? Anyways, it’s intimidating, it’s scary. But you know what? We tell our girls this all the time. We can do hard things.

Everything you want is on the other side of hard. Quote from Coach Monty Williams. He used to be good when he was on the Phoenix Suns. Anyway, so, individualism, intimidation. I think another barrier for many of us is idealism. I fell into this trap more than anything. We want one friend to be the best friend.

Right? We want them to do all the things. Jenny Allen, I’m going to quote her book regularly throughout the series. She has this book, again, called Find Your People. And she mentions there’s at least six different types of friends. And this was so good. She’s like, you can’t be all things to all people.

You’re just one. Okay. So let me give you a list. It’s not on your notes, but you have the sage. And so the sage, this means people come to you because you listen to them, you pray for them and you give them advice. I feel so bad. One of my friends, Jason, he lives in Florida. Anytime I call him, it’s because I have a problem, right?

And I got to go to the sage and figure out how do I, I’m like, dude, I feel like we’re friends. I feel so bad though. All you know are the bad parts of my life. And he’s like, no, I find joy in helping you in your screw-ups. I said, thank you. This is a great friendship, right? But he can’t be everything. You have the encourager?

They just believe in you? You gonna, you have those friends? Jordan, she’s, uh, can I? No, don’t talk about it. She’s working on a project. She’s writing a book, and this time she’s gonna put her name on it. And so when I encourage her and say it’s great, she doesn’t believe me because I’m just her husband and she knows I want food for dinner.

Um, but, but she goes to a friend and she has a friend who’s like, hey, it’s always great. You know, just go. You need that. You need the encourager in your life. You have the foxhole friend. This one’s so good. It’s the good companion and defender. Right? So actually for Jordan, Jessica was your foxhole friend.

If there’s anything happening, your sister will step up and help you get out of any bad situation, right? I don’t have one of those. No, I’m kidding. Foxhole friend, you have the challenger. This one, I feel bad for you because people avoid you. Because challengers, you’re not afraid to tell the truth.

Proverbs 27 17, that’s your life verse. As iron sharpens iron, I’m going to sharpen you with my criticism, right? But you need challengers. You need people to say, dude, it’s not good enough. Yeah, dude, you just treated your wife terrible. Your encourager won’t tell you that, but I’m the challenger in this relationship.

You need to go make that right. This is what challengers do. You also have the fun one. They bring life to the party. They always have a boombox over their shoulder. I don’t, this isn’t 1970, but you know what I mean? An iPhone over their shoulder, I’m done. But they’re fun, right? We want our welcome team to be the fun ones, right?

They’re just here to have a good time. And then you have the planner. Everything has to be organized, and they’re thoughtful. And this person’s so great because they’re the ones who make sure all the friends still get together. That’s Zach in our friendship. He’s the one who scheduled our Friday Zoom call, right, from CBU, my friend.

He just plans, and I’m, I don’t know which one I am. I want to think I’m the fun one, but I don’t think they’ll say that. But anyways, but you can’t expect one friend to be all those things. The beauty of friendship is there should never be jealousy. You know, like, I had one friend in college, it was weird, because when I became friends with him, he like latched on.

So when I made other friends, he started like being moody as if he was my girlfriend. Anybody else have those other guy friends? I’m like, bro, I can go to Disneyland with someone else besides you. You know, it was one of those things. You have to know, there shouldn’t be jealousy. That was stuff we had to work through, and he did.

But there has to, you know, with friends, like, I’m not offended if you’re going, you need to go to dinner with other people. We need friends. And what I love about friendship is it can multiply. There’s no limit. And they bring different things into your life. And so what I want us to address, this is just really rudimentary, just foundational.

There are a lot of lies that are keeping us from making friends and keeping those friends. And so we’re going to spend a lot of time this year peeling back those layers of lies and giving you some just really easy intentional practices. Because I want you to imagine with me, what if we became a people who didn’t just know friendship, that’s common sense, but no, we became a people that said friendship is common practice for us.

We make friends here. We will, we never have enough friends around. We’re bringing more people in, and of all people in the world, as gospel people, this is what we’re called to do. Why? The good news of Jesus Christ is that although you and I were drowning in a world of loneliness, read Genesis 1 through 11, Drowning in a world of loneliness because of sin done by us, sin done to us, and sin done all around us.

We are left in lonely isolation, but Jesus came to set us free, to have a life filled with friendship. John 15, Jesus says, you’re my friends. He tells his disciples, we’re friends now. He, he offers that friendship to you and me when we put our faith and trust in the work of the cross of Jesus Christ. And here’s the good news.

We always talk about this part of the good news, which needs to be first and foremost: when Jesus died on the cross and rose again, he reconciled us back to God. But also, when Jesus died on the cross and rose again, he reconciled us to our neighbors. He began the process. By which you and I are not just fully known and fully loved by God himself, which is a miracle.

But you and I are fully known and fully loved by our friends around us. This is what we’re called to do, to dwell in unity for eternity. So for this year ahead, as I close, let’s learn to do this together. And so proximity isn’t all there is to friendship, trust me, but. You can’t go to the next stage of friendship until you take that step.

So that’s the next step for this week. Figure out rhythms. Get in regular proximity with others. For some of you, it means taking the next step of showing up 15 minutes early. Our church, actually, we meet at 915 to pray for this and we honor one another and we have time getting together before we welcome the rest.

Maybe that’s your next step. Maybe your next step is to join a Together group. They actually start this week. And so we’d love, in fact, if you’re kind of new around here anyways, coming to pizza with the pastors right after service is the perfect next step for you. Even something so simple in your groups this week, you’re going to talk about, like, what if you just put a fire pit in your front yard?

Not your backyard, your front yard. And you open yourself up to conversations with neighbors. We’re too lonely. And, and trust me, if this sounds like too easy of a step, come next week. It’s gonna get a lot harder. But step one, get around people on a regular basis. And see what God can do even in that. Let’s pray.​