War Buddies | Week 2

How are you doing? If you're new here, you're wondering what's this all about? It was showing a clip and that's that's Hal, friend of mine, and we've been showing these clips of some combat veterans. They're all rock pointers, and we got them together

and asked them to share a little bit of their story, and we really just asked them because I had a little theory I wanna know is, did you form some bonds of friendship you never would have expected to form on the battlefield? There was something about being in combat that got you to a level of friendship

that maybe you you didn't as easily get elsewhere, and every combat vet we talked to said yes.

And and so I just asked Hal to share his story a little bit there. Matter of fact, if you wanna go online to our Facebook, we'll share about a little two, three minute version that talks a little bit more of his story. If if if you're interested in that, you can you can go look at that. But but as we ask these questions, we found out, yes, they they were saying yes to that because

I was interested in this idea of friendship that's deeper than most friendships. And what is it about not the glory of war? War is not what made this, but is there something about being, you know, battlefield moments that that forces you into maybe a principle of friendship that is very biblical

that we don't even really understand? And when peace time, when there's not battles going on, that we don't really know how to pursue. Can we develop

war buddies, so to speak? And and that's what we started off last week talking about, and we've been looking at it through the life of a a guy named David, King David. If you're not familiar with church much, he was Israel's second king, And you might have heard of him, even if you're not familiar with church. He he he battled a giant named Goliath, and that's what made him kind of famous.

But he he was anointed king when he was a teenager,

and was told that, hey, you know, you're gonna be next king because the current king Saul is not honoring me, not following me. So his line, his family line is not gonna continue to be king, and you are. And then it proceeded his life proceeded to kinda go the wrong direction, and that Saul was jealous and chased after him and tried to kill him. And in that process, he had become friends

with a man named Jonathan. And that's what we looked at last week. It was him and Jonathan's friendship, which was never would have made any sense because Jonathan was Saul's son.

So basically, David was gonna take Jonathan's job and his inheritance from him. And we kind of unpackaged that war buddy. We've been looking at the life of this guy because David is considered a man after God's own heart, Israel's greatest king.

But he had a great dichotomy in his life. Not only did he do all these great things, he also did some really knuckleheaded things. But in the end, was remembered for a good king. And why?

And the reason is because we're what we're looking at is some different points in his life where he had war buddies. He had friends that went deeper than an ordinary friendship. These friendships that were formed and forged on the battlefield. Forged under fire.

And so we've been trying to look at his life and look at these principles and say, is there principles that we can take across the board? And and what's interesting is what I've noticed when we've talked to the combat vets, there is a deeper principle. It's not about being at war,

but there's something about when you're in that situation, you're actually forced to confront what the bible says real friendship is. And that comes from our theme verses Proverbs seventeen seventeen, and it says this, a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.

So that first line, a friend loves at all times. That means friends are loyal, friends have your back, or in military terms, friends have your six. And he says, and what are friends really for? They're born for adversity. So think about why in combat,

this kind of this principle is forced to happen. You have to watch out for each other, and you have this bigger mission that you've agreed to, and there's bullets literally flying through the air. So it's it's a it's an adverse situation

where you have to choose to watch out for each other. And that's really what scripture says friendship is for. We are meant to be God's people, and we have his kingdom and his mission, and we're supposed to watch out for each other in the process.

Friends are supposed to be deeper. We're not supposed to just have acquaintances, people that we like the same things. We need war buddies. So as we looked at last week with Jonathan, a friend has always got your back. This week, we're gonna flip the story. We're gonna look at some guys in David's life

that that that this time David was the war buddy. He's the one that their friendship changed their lives. But as going in this, I wanna ask you a question. We watched Hal's video, and he talked about him and the sergeant major were best buddies. But did you catch they didn't meet

until the sergeant major was assigned to serve under lieutenant Hal Tate. So here's my question for you. Which came first? The mission and the agreed upon destination or the friendship first? The

destination first. It was through their mutual agreed upon destination they formed the friendship. And we're gonna unpackage that today. And I'm just gonna warn you, I'm about to tell you what the what the idea is today, but but I'm just gonna tell you right now. This sermon is brought to you by Captain Obvious.

Everything I say, you're gonna instinctively go, yeah, I knew that. So if you're the type of person that says a good sermon is when I learned something I didn't know before, you're gonna go, duh. I already know that. I already know that. But here is the issue. I'm warning you before we dive into this.

I can ask you another question. How many of you know how to lose weight? Everyone in this room knows move more, eat less. That's how you do it.

Sounds easy. How many of us do it or how many of us this time of year you've already given up on that resolution that said you were gonna do it? I noticed gym's not as crowded as it was last month.

This is that kind of a sermon. It's the one that it's gonna make sense to you. The problem is it's deeper than you think. Do not check out on me. Because it's not a matter of do I understand this. It's a matter of do I realize how critically important it is to actually do this. Because that's where the problem is.

Because today what we're gonna talk about the key to friendship of having war buddies, deeper friendships is simply this. Is the big idea is I should determine my friends. I should let my destination determine my friends. I should let my destination, where am I heading in life? Who am I supposed to be? Where I'm going,

should be the determination of my friends. Now now you hear that, you go okay, okay, okay. And and you're like, that's where most of us don't do that. But yet, we do completely agree with a principle that says this. My friends determine my destination.

Everyone's like, I agree with that. If you're a parent, you know you agree with that. At least you agree that's true in your kids' lives. That's why you're all worried about who they hang out with.

Because you know, you know you know bad company corrupts good morals. It's biblical, you know. And then you look. So we know instinctively that far friends determine where we end up. If that is true then, we should live by the reverse engineered of that. I should let my destination determine who I choose as friends.

So far you're like, duh. Right? Captain Obvious. Okay. Well, let's look at a little bit of this. What am I talking about here? We're gonna look in the life of David here. Well, I wanna read about some of his friends,

and then we'll take this apart a little bit, but it's in second Samuel chapter 23.

And what's going on is this is king David's kind of Sam was recording some of his last words, and as he got older as king, man after god on his heart, he started talking about his great friends, his they're called his mighty men. These are these mighty heroes. And here's the thing you gotta understand as I read this. This is what a lot of people struggle with the Old Testament on. You gotta understand a a critical element. Teacher Bill here is the whole Bible is written for us, but not the whole Bible was written to us.

Each book of the Bible had a legitimate a first time audience in mind. And this was written to the the Israel. It's talking about their history. It's talking about God interacting. And so you read about combat. You read about war. And all you think is God was bloodthirsty and cares about war. That's not true.

What he's talking about, these mighty men were men that he had had since before he was king. They became like his special forces, and what you're gonna notice is when they were in battles that God needed them in. And you understand, Israel, when it was in battles, it didn't go out to fight to conquer.

It was trying to fight to survive. They were being attacked, and God's army, his people were protecting his people. And so these guys are heroic, and most of the time, what you hear the story is, the general army, Israel army flees,

and these guys, who are David's friends, they're his special forces. When everyone's running away, they didn't. And the other thing I wanna share before I read this is, every one of these stories, there's more to the story than we know, because we weren't there. So I just wanna read about what he called the three.

He had his men, there was his friends, and then he had the deeper friends, and then he had the three. They were his mightiest warriors, his closest group. And I'm just gonna read that part, and then we'll I'll I'll hopefully

make a good point out of it. Who knows? I've already done this three times. I'm not even sure if I believe it anymore, but let's try. Good. You're with me. I love you guys. You laugh more at my stupid stuff.

It's fun. Don't egg me on too much though. These are the last words of David. No. No. I'm not. The wrong verse. Verse eight. These are the names of David's mightiest warriors. The first was Jeshoebeim, the Hakmonite. Man, doesn't that just sound like you should be a good warrior? You're a Hakmonite.

Who was the leader of the three, the three Midas warriors among David's men. He once used his spear to kill 800 enemies in a single battle. Man, you'd he'd go like, Rambo? Never heard of him. Next in rank among the three was Eleazar, son of Dodai, a descendant of Ahoah.

Once Eleazar and David stood together against the Philistines when the entire Israelite army had fled.

He killed the Philistines until his hand was too tired to lift his sword, and the Lord gave him a great victory that day. The rest of the army did not return until it was time to collect the plunder. It's like rips on the rest of the army. They they were like blisters. They showed up when the work was done. You you call that your children, but

verse 11. This is the guy I wanna focus on here. Next in rank was Shema son of Agi from Harar. One time the Philistines gathered at Lehi and attacked the Israelites in a field full of lentils. The Israelite army fled, but Shema held his ground in the middle of the field and beat back the Philistines.

So the Lord brought about a great victory. Now like I said, every one of these stories has more to it than just glory on the battlefield. They were doing God's will. They were protecting God's people. But this last one, since they share a little bit more detail,

bible's gonna we know more about what he was actually doing. It says that they were attacked while they were in a lentil field full of lentils. So couple of things you know about that. First of all, that means it's about harvest season. The field is full of lentils. That's food that needs to be harvested.

What you gotta understand about people back then, there weren't refrigerators, there wasn't much storage thing, there wasn't Costco,

and lentils was the field of the commoners. That was the product of the the the they would common people grew that to eat. And so here, if you have this big field that can hold an army that's that that's full of lentils, it needs to be harvested soon. If that that doesn't get harvested, you know who's gonna die?

A bunch of women and children and elderly non combatants, collateral damage, a bunch of God's people, a bunch of innocent people, a bunch of powerless people are gonna die. That's why the Israel army's even in the field.

Because we know about combat back then is when you went in to attack someone and run over them, you didn't have big lines of logistics like we do. They can bring you supplies. How an army fed itself was plundering the countryside. That's why it was so brutal because they would steal all this food, and then the innocent, the the the powerless,

they would starve to death, and if they couldn't actually steal the food, they would try to burn the field, scorched earth, because then it would cause the people great harm.

So here's what it's saying. Shema is remembered as a mighty man, not just because he could kill people. He's remembered as a mighty man as when the rest of the army ditched their own people, this guy ran into the middle of a field and said, not on my watch. And he chose to put his life on the line to protect the powerless.

That's heroic. That's what we know. And every one of these stories, there's something like that behind it. We just don't know what it is. This guy truly was an honorable man that was willing to risk his life for those who couldn't protect themselves.

Here's the crazy part and why this connects to what we're talking about today. These were David's mighty men. They'd become his closest friends. But remember last week, I talked about David spent a long time out of the back side of wilderness, basically in another country.

Where do you think he found his mightiest men and his friends? It was then out there. You know the only people who were out there? Criminals and outcasts. That's why David was out there. The only people that would have been where David befriended these guys was criminals and outcasts. So because these guys met David,

and he was called a man after God's own heart, and he stood for what was right, and eventually would do what's right. He wouldn't kill the king when he had a chance. They watched him do that. They watched him fight with honor. They and they chose, David, we're gonna go with you.

We're gonna go where you wanna go. They chose, we want the same destination. We're gonna follow you. And because of that, a guy named Shema is remembered as an incredible hero. A protector of the defenseless,

a guy that was willing to sacrifice his life. When he met David, he was either an outcast or a criminal or most likely both. It changed his life. That's the kind of friendships we need to have. That's the kind of friends we need to be. It's people that say, hey, we're gonna we wanna share destination.

So then the friendship forms, and then we end up where we were supposed to go. Because we know that friends determine our destination. We just instinctively know it, but what we should learn is that if that's true, our destination should determine our friends.

It should. You know, one guy came up to me after one of the services

last night. He goes, I've been a marine I was a marine for twenty five years, retired. And he goes, what you just said made a lot of sense to me because in the marine corps we were taught when we got liberty, libbo, libbo days when you went out on liberty, any marines know what I'm talking about? You had to have a liberty partner. You weren't allowed to go out alone, especially if you're in another country. You had to declare who your partner was.

And and the sergeant major would tell him, picking your liberty partner is a career decision. Sounds stupid, but he goes, because there was two rules about your liberty partner. You can never leave them, but if one gets in trouble, you're both in trouble. So here's the problem. If you pick poorly,

you're in trouble. So you gotta decide, it's a career decision, because you go, what kind of career do you wanna have? What kind of marine do you wanna have? That should determine

who you pick to be your liberty partner. That's exactly this point. Who we choose as who to go live life with is gonna determine where we end up. So maybe we should determine where we're supposed to end up, and then start picking friends based on that.

Instead of randomly finding out along the way. So how does that even work? Why do I say that? I'm gonna let's turn to a a bible and say, how does friends how do friends even really determine my destination? What's we say that's true, but but why does that work that way? Turn to

if you have your Bibles, it's the book of Amos, a little over halfway through here. Famous Amos here, prophet. And I'm gonna read verse chapter three verse three, and it is going to be even more captain obvious than you can ever think. You're like, wow. God inspired this prophet to ask this question. It says this,

can two people walk together without agreeing on a direction?

Wow, that's deep, isn't it? Can two people walk together without agreeing on a direction? What's the obvious answer? No. They cannot. Two people can't walk together if they don't agree on where they're going. Everyone in the room knows, so obvious, no. Well, you still married them.

You guys can't even decide where to go to dinner. So you end up with something lame because by the time you decide, it's like, oh forget it. Let's just go where the kids wanna go. McDonald's.

Hence why we're back to you know how to lose weight, but we don't. It sounds like such an obvious question. Why is God context is king, guys. When you read scripture, you can't just pull it out. Amos was a prophet who was talking to God's people. And the problem, God's people had this this this habit

of their God's people. They know it. They've seen God. They're the prophet. They say, I'm all in. I'm following you, God. We're your chosen children. We're your children. And what would happen was they'd say they're following them, but then they'd start hanging out and looking at the countries around them. Their other friends, the school friends on. And and they would start acting like them and going after them. When he asked that question, what he was trying to say to people of Israel, like you say you're supposed to be my friend. You're supposed to be with me. But can two people really

really walk together if they don't agree on the direction? He was trying to say that to them to say, listen, you guys say that I'm your God. I'm your Lord. I'm the one you're following. This is supposed to be your destination, but you don't agree with the destination. How can we be friends?

So in the end, it's a much deeper question, isn't it?

If you are a Christian, someone who says I follow Jesus, this is a really really really really really really big deal. You know it instinctively with your kids, but here's the problem. You teach your kids more is caught than taught.

Some of the problems of our kids is you really want them to make this wise decision with friends, yet we don't do the same thing we want them to do. It is. It's it's it's a really big deal. You see, I think how friends determine our destination is what this is saying is it's this principle called agreement.

We build friendship based on things we agree upon. So if I can figure out where I know I'm supposed to go, I can then look for friends based on that.

And like I said, if you're a Christian, big deal. Matter of fact, turn over to second Corinthians. I know it's a sword drill today. We're going through the Bible a lot. Don't normally do this. But

in second Corinthians chapter six, apostle Paul's talking about if you know the Lord, you follow the Lord, you have the Holy Spirit in you, you're now kind of like a living temple of God. God resides in you. And he starts to talk about how important it is who you choose to to make your friends.

It's it's got a big big big impact on your life, so maybe you should choose your friends based on where you're supposed to go, and he says this in verse chapter six of second Corinthians. Verse 14 says, don't team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness?

How can light live with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever? That sounds pretty harsh.

That's some that's some that's some hard words. Matter of fact, on first reading, it sounds like what what God's telling us to do is is to be like the pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower. They're Puritans,

which was a form of of of Christians. They were the Puritans, and they were so serious about them being Puritans that even other Christians, anyone who wasn't a Puritan, they called them strangers. Hence, the first stranger danger, little pilgrim boys. Stranger danger, you know, and they ran away.

But is that what the Bible is the Bible saying that we should be that kind of people? If you're if you're new to church and your friend just brought you here, you're going, did the pastor just say you should not be my friend?

And and there you're probably going, no, I'm trying to tell you that, but you keep following me around. No, just kidding. But no, you gotta take all of scripture.

We're obviously supposed to have friendship with people that don't know the Lord. The Bible says we're supposed to go make disciples. We should be purposely doing it. We should be showing people that don't know the Lord the love of the Lord by loving them the way Jesus loves them.

Matter of fact, the Bible has this powerful illustrations. We're supposed to be the salt of the earth. And and and you know what salt why that's powerful is what does salt do to anything you put on it? It raises your blood pressure. No. It makes it salty. You know, you throw salt on anything, it's saltier. However,

there's one place you can put salt that it doesn't make anything saltier. You know what that is? A bag of salt. So if you take this verse out of context,

that's what some of you have done. You act like this as parents, especially with your kids. You're like circle the wagons. We only have Christian, only this. We're locked up and we're gonna become Morton's Baptist Church. And you know when all you do is gather

it together as a bag of salt? You have nothing to make salty, so you fight with each other about whose salt granules are more salty than the others. That's what and then the rest of the world laughs at us and thinks we're jerks. It's not saying you can't have outsiders, strangers be friends. But you know what it is saying?

Any friendships we have, there's called the prince my youth pastor taught me this. Good friend of mine. He called it the principle of the lean. There are certain friendships that you lean into more.

Sometimes a mutual lean. Sometimes you're leaning more than they're leaning. And what I mean by leaning in is and a lot of times in most friendships, one's leaning in more than the other. When it comes to like, you know, no matter how much you say you're equal,

one of you starts talking more like the other. One is usually the influencer of the culture. They're the ones that kinda lean in, and they they kinda pull you in, and you lean in. What it's saying is those type of friendships, the lean in friendship, those should be if you're a Christian, your lean into friendships

should be with other believers. You shouldn't be your deepest friendship. The ones you lean into for the most advice,

the ones you lean into where life really comes from, the ones you lean into should be other people that know the Lord. Because you know why? If you lean into some friendship that there's no Jesus to lean into, then Jesus gets left out.

And then all those friendships you lean into will pull you away from what God wants. That's why most of us struggle with following Jesus. Most of the friendships we lean into are not trying to lean into Jesus, and you're tempted to go the other way. I I really thought about it and learned this. When I was in college,

I was getting ready to come home for like a spring break. I had like a week or two off. And I had my bags. I was going out to my car. Was gonna get ready to drive. And and this friend of mine drove up, and he was a cool guy. Everyone liked him. He was awesome. He's one of those outgoing. You want him at a party. Yeah. Everything, you know. He was hysterical.

You just wanted to be around him, but he was a little bit like he we called him a one step. I have one step friends. You know, they they take everything one step too far. He was probably one and a half steps, which made him fun, but he was just a crazy guy. And even his name. His name was Cecil.

And so and matter of fact, at Christmas, he would dress like Santa Claus. We called him Cecil Claus. He was always at our parties. And he was just funny and hysterical. He comes driving up and he's like, yay. My Arizona brother. My Arizona cowboy heading home? And I go, yeah. And he goes, well, you wanna drive with me?

And I'm like, sure, I'll save gas money. You're going to Arizona. He goes, no, I'm going to Canada.

I'm like, then why did you invite me? Because he goes, I want you to come to Canada with me instead of going to Arizona. And I'm like, why? He goes, because if both of us drive, it's gonna take a while to get up there. And and he goes, if we drive nonstop, we get there faster, have more days to experience Canada,

and then we can come back with great stories. I go, why would I do that? He goes, have you ever been to Canada? I go, no. Goes, neither have I. Hop in. Let's go to Canada. I mean, we didn't have cell phones or anything. My mom knows what

time I said I was gonna leave, and she's the type of person that'll start looking out the window. It's been exactly six hours and fifteen minutes. That's how long it takes him to go get here even with his five bathroom stops. And she's looking, and and so if I didn't show up, I'm like, you would think I'd be in so much trouble. And you know what I found myself doing? I literally caught myself putting my bag in his back seat and started to get in the car.

Because I liked him so much. I was like, let's go to Canada. And then I started getting away. Wait. Wait. I can't go to Canada. I already know my destination. I need to go home.

See, that's what happens when we have friendships that we lean into. You like them, you get to know. But if they are going to Canada when you know you're supposed to go to Arizona, you're you're it's it's gonna cause problems.

And some of us, our biggest struggle with following the Lord is the same thing that you get on your kids about.

We don't go choose friends based on the fact that they lean into Jesus. It's the principle of the lean. And you realize that's why we start home groups? That's why we try to get environments where we're not just sitting in rows, but we're sitting in circles? It's to purposely start with the destination.

Everyone here is committing to say we want to be more like Jesus. So we ask you to choose to go there.

But since our worldview of this is where the sermon just got deeper than you thought. The way we view friendships, we think it's I gotta like them, I gotta know them, I gotta have the same interest, we gotta like each other, we gotta root for the same football team, you know, we gotta sit there and have our have our party today and say go commercials because there's no one to root for, and and and you know, and and all that stuff. But you want all that stuff up front, and we choose. We filter that way, and we never think about starting with where do I ultimately am called to be. If I'm a believer, I'm called to be like Jesus, so I should choose friends that want the same thing. So we form groups around the around the destination.

And then the other stuff happens. But the way we're wired to think about friends, we don't wanna do that for two reasons. Either one, you don't have any friends and you don't care, which is a problem in and of itself. Or you already have so many friends

that the idea of going to strangers and getting to know someone else, I don't need that. I got enough people that I like being around. So it seems like a waste of time. But here's my question. Of all those friends you do have, do you have a critical core of the ones you really lean into

that you help each other lean into Jesus?

Now if your answer is yes, I have a group of friends that we meet regularly. It's not just every once in a blue moon we say Jesus at the end of a prayer, but we really challenge each other. We lean into each other. We lean into the Lord. We gather and we do all that. And it's not one of our home groups. I don't care if you get into one of our home groups then.

The reason we form home groups is not to build the brand of Rock Point. It's to build the body of Christ. So if you have that, awesome. But if you don't, you need to find it. And this is where you need to understand your destination should determine your friends.

So if you hear that and you don't have friends that you help each other lean into Jesus,

why wouldn't you get into a group?

This is why this is important. Here's where it got even deeper. It's a discipleship question. It goes back to Amos three three. The really deep meaning of can two people walk together if they don't agree upon a destination? The answer is no.

If you don't want to go find those friends, what you have to ask yourself, even if you come to church every week and you sit here, you even get here in time to know that we sing before I preach. You are that committed, but you don't want to go seek out those friendships.

What you have to confront in your heart is this question. Do you really want to follow Jesus?

Is that really the goal of your life is to be more like Jesus? Because if you keep resisting community, it's not a time issue. It's not a friendship issue. It's a simple, do I really, really, really wanna follow Jesus? Or do I really like the other friends I lean into? And I'm drawn more to that than to him.

Boom. Just got deep in here. That's what it's talking about. That principle of the lean. Are you willing to are you willing to do because like I said, if there's no Jesus to lean into, then Jesus is always left out. So this is why it's so critical for what I need to decide to do. Here's the commitment.

We know that friends determine our destination. How many of us then will actually truly commit to saying, I'm gonna start letting my destination determine my friends.

And you know what? I know there's some of the people in there. You know we need? That's why we showed the video. We need people that are willing to be trained up and be leaders of small groups.

But here's the thing, you hear that and you're like, oh, that just sounds like work and tedious. I don't know these people. It's whatever. But guess what you do if you choose to be that person? You get to be a king David. God will use you to to to work through you in that environment you're willing to establish

to raise up mighty men and women that'll change the world because you were willing to do that. Guys, I just spoke in guy guy tongue. I speak y guy right now. Didn't that make being a small group leader sound a heck of a lot more heroic than how it usually sounds? And I'm not exaggerating.

That's what it is. That's what it is. Let's go develop environments where people can be mighty men and women for Jesus.

So maybe you should think about that when you look at your schedule. And if you I don't have time. Don't have time. If you don't have time or you got got enough friends, you gotta look at those friends and go, where are they leaning into? Because maybe I have too many of the wrong friends.

Because Jesus put it this way. The reason I need to let my destination determine my friends is is he he said it this way in in Matthew chapter 16. Jesus was telling him I'm gonna go die. He's telling him his mission. My destination is to die for you. Save the world. And Peter

acted all. He's like, no. No. I would never let that happen. Like, he's gonna help God,

and he has it wrong. So God rebukes him. Jesus rebukes him, and then he looks at the whole disciple and says, I think you guys don't understand what this means to follow me. And and he says this. He goes, Jesus said to his disciples, if any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.

He says, give up your own way, the things you wanna do, follow me. Come with me. We need friends that are willing to do that. As disciples, we need to follow him. And you know what? Following him sometimes means taking up a cross. A cross is not a pleasant thing. There's gonna be moments in following Jesus that are hard.

And community choosing to choose your friends based on your destination can be very difficult

because we don't wanna do that. It seems inconvenient. And if I get in a group, especially if you choose to lead one, you're gonna have this group, people are gonna gather, no one knows each other, and there's always gonna be that cross of an extra grace required person in the room. And you're always afraid of that person. The one that, you know, that's just like, oh, they're so difficult to deal with. And if you're in that group and you're like, I don't know who it is in my group. Guess who everyone else thinks it is.

It's you.

But he says, take up your cross and go where I want you to go. So some of the things God asked us to do to is hard and we think friends should be the easy. I wanna go the easiest route for friends. Sometimes the best friends. Why do combat veterans end up being such good friends? With people they probably would have hated each other at a time of peace. Because they realized greater commit mission, commitment to that, and we're gonna watch each other's backs. And in the process of doing that, bam. All the other things we think about friendship actually happens.

Only we lean into Jesus. Like I said, this is a simple message. But the question is, look at your friends right now. And if the friends and their values and everything you talk about and everything that you spend most of the time with, where are you gonna be five years from now with staying with that as your core friends?

Ten years from now. Where are you gonna be?

Let me sum it up this way. My, my my son, man, ever since he was born, he had a a gift. He was wired because I think some of our greatest gifts can also be our greatest challenges.

And my my son, I I share more stories about him because he's my only kid that doesn't make me get him run through him first. He goes like, if it helps the people, which is part of his personality. But but man, he is so outgoing,

and and and not just outgoing, he just relates. He connects to people. He befriends them, and especially the outcast. It's like if if you're a little bit out there, like when he works with students stuff, if you're out there, he's just drawn.

He just has this ability to connect and relate. Well, when you're a kid, that can that can you don't know you're not growing up. You don't know what to do with that. So he was always making friends. It was like when he was four, we'd go to Peter Piper Pizza. We'd order our pizza, we sit down, we get the pizza and my son go, hey, can I just go jump in the ball pit for a few minutes? I'm like, okay, son hurry up, but come back pizza will get cold. Alright. He takes off, I turn around, I grab a piece of pizza. I haven't even bitten it yet and he's standing next to me with some kid.

And he's like, hey dad, this is my friend Jimmy. Can we have a sleepover? True story.

I'm like, who's Jimmy? I just what's his last name? Don't know. Who's his parents? Don't know. Where'd you meet him? Right over there. I mean, in the time I picked up a piece of pizza, you ran over there, befriended him to the level of your comfort that now you wanna have a sleepover with him. Seriously.

And that's what he's like. Here's the problem. He has friends everywhere. Always.

Coaching him in sports was weird. I always dreamed of my son following my footsteps and picking a sport. And you know what? He was pretty good at every sport and he liked every sport but never really totally went after one until he finally focused in on baseball. And I thought, finally, I've done the right thing. My son is captured in the heart of of God's sport. First sport mentioned in the Bible in the beginning. It's awesome. And then I thought it was there. And then know what I learned is I'm coaching him a baseball. The only reason he picked baseball is that's the sport you stand around and you could talk a lot while you're playing.

Basketball, you're running too much. Hey, how you go? You

know, he couldn't do it. Football, too many things moving on. But baseball, he's out there in the middle of the game. He could just be talking. I mean, I'd have to yell at him when he's an eighth grade son. Turn around. Shut up. Stop talking because you're the pitcher right now.

I'm just waiting. He's talking to the second. Hey, you guys. What are doing to mine? Are you going to judge? Like, we're playing a game. Oh. Oh. Oh. Okay. That's and so here's the problem with that. Great gift. But everyone was a friend. And so he would befriend and he did not choose friends based on his destination.

Because he didn't really know where he was going. So anybody he liked, he became friends. And so he had all these friends. And what we noticed, especially as he got into eighth grade till the end of his sophomore year, it was a dark time parenting.

Because whichever friends he hung out with the most, that's the road he traveled.

And it got bad, especially his first year of high school. I mean, you're trying. I mean, he's he's it's he's sitting there and it's like it would be like, we'd get a notice from the school. Hey, we just wanna know your son was brought to the principal's office during third hours for questioning. He's not a suspect,

but he was a friend of a person of interest.

And and and and it would be and it's all he'd come home. I go, son, what's the deal with your friends? He goes, I didn't do anything. They just got him in, questioned me, sent me back to class. I go, but don't you understand that if you are friends and your friends are described as persons of interest in an investigation,

that that's not good? And he's like, but he's my friend. I didn't do anything. And I'm like, yeah, at some point though, how many times do you wanna get called in for questioning

for your friends as persons of interest? And he didn't get it. So he would do knuckleheaded things. And he was getting drawn this way. And here I'm trying to protect him from that. I'm doing everything you are as a parent. I'm a pastor, and I was afraid that everything I was trying to do, I'd holler at him. You gotta hang with these friends. You gotta do it. I'm trying to do everything I can to force my agenda and get them to do it because I just know one way, attack.

You know, and then so I'm fighting with them and it's getting bad and I realized at one point, I go, you know what? I've turned into doctor Frankenpastor. And I'm like, I have created a pastor's kid. The only thing worse is a missionaries kid Or a Seahawks fan's kid.

Or a cat owner's kid. But like third or fourth on the list is pastor's kid. But it was awful. And it's like I'm making them go down that road that every pastor's afraid of. Well, the reason I almost didn't wanna be a pastor is I didn't wanna have pastor's kids.

Because they come around, run around like they own the place, act like an angel, live like the devil. You know? And and and it's and I'm like, what am I doing? I can't do this. I gotta change. So his mother and I, we started talking,

and I noticed that he did have a group of friends that were his mighty men. Church friends. Connor, Cade, Sarah, Reagan. And they wouldn't give up on him, but they were his age. Sometimes it seemed a drama y and he would get mad at them, but he also had a couple friends that were older. Like Jeff Larson,

our kids and students pastor. He was the middle school pastor, had been his middle school pastor. But even though he got in high school, he saw something in Jaden and says, I'm not giving up on him. And I actually learned from Jeff to follow his lead.

Because I'd been a youth pastor. I know this. It's like the cobbler's kids have the worst shoes. It's like my own kid. I know everything I would tell someone else to do, but then I'm like, will force this.

And I kept on about pick better friends, pick better friends. And Jeff kinda kinda guide him to like, no. No. I want him to pick the destination of his life. Is he gonna listen to the Lord and wanna pursue Jesus?

If you can get him to go all in on that, if he can understand that Jesus is the best friend, Jesus is the greatest war buddy, it might unlock the other things. So I stopped trying to control his agenda. Wouldn't let him go to unsafe environments,

but I didn't just yell at him about his friends. I started to encourage him and encourage anything in his heart I saw that leaned him towards Jesus. And it was tough, but at the end of his sophomore year, he basically came to me and had a conversation that said, I wanna pursue Jesus instead of him always having to pursue me.

And things started to change. You know what's crazy? This is what's cool about talking about friendship. It's not just about your buddies.

This is about how to be a parent, how to be husband or wife, how to be a real friend. And when I watched when he and when he realized he embraced his destination of I'm a child of the king,

and he decided that's where I wanna go. He started to choose the friends based on that, and he filtered. He was friendly with everybody, but he started to have the the non Christian friends. He started to keep the ones that leaned in him. He's brought several of them to Jesus,

and he started to choose that. His grade point average went from his first two years, even his grades got better. His GPA his first two years was something I wish I had as an ERA as a pitcher. It's like 1.5. It was. 1.5 was his GPA after his sophomore year. He graduated with a three point o.

It was a b, sounds okay, but he had to dig out of a 1.5 hole to get to the three point o. And you know what? Always trying to pour in him, dream of him as glorious sports. He got me to play softball with him. I've told you. That's why I'm sore all the time and limp.

But finally on Thursday, he figured out how to hit a ball. He ripped some and I was like, wow. Good job. Proud of him. But that paled in comparison.

So if you saw him walking around out here between services, I walk out there and you'll see me occasionally walk out with my headset on and you'll see another guy walk up that's built about the same, slightly less good looking, much smaller biceps as I like to tell him. But he's got a headset on. It's my son.

Looks like a more Italian version of me. His mom's jeans won out there.

And he has a headset on because he's an intern in our preteen department now. And he wants to follow in my footsteps in that way.

And deciding his destination was to grab ahold of Jesus, changed everything, and then God took his relatability, his ability to connect, and his big mouth and channeled it towards something good.

And I'm talking to him and I'm like, hey, what are you talking about? I'm being a knucklehead, me too. I go, you punching throats? And he goes, and taking names, dad.

And then he walked up to me and said, just after the service, he goes, hey dad, thanks for that illustration you helped me out with in my sermon. So I'm coaching him like in this and I feel like a proud dad moment. Hey, I'd help. He goes, yeah, all the adults loved it, but five kids came up to me and said they didn't understand it.

That's his way of saying you're old. And I reported back, well, you just didn't tell it right.

I tell you this for the simple thing.

We need to let our destination determine our friends. And if you want your kids to do it, you better do it. And really that struggle in your heart is really a struggle of can two walk together if they don't agree. Can you walk with God and not agree to walk where he's walking? Settle in your heart if Jesus is your war buddy,

and then make an intentional decision to start choosing situations and ways to look for friends that are leaning into Jesus and see what happens in your life. See what happens when you're a mighty man or a mighty woman and you're surrounded with other people trying to be mighty men and mighty women. Because your destination

should determine your friends. Father God, I thank you Lord. I thank you for being our best friend. I thank you for being the truest war buddy and that you laid down your life for us. And God, I I just pray this was a pretty easy to understand message, much more difficult to apply.

Because Lord, I know there's a lot of men and women in this room that their struggle with looking for real community is not really about the time. It's not about the fears. It's about a simple fear, a simple decision. Do I really wanna go where you want me to go?

So Lord, I pray that you will give a lot of men and women in this room the courage to say, I'm gonna go where you go. I'm gonna take up my cross and follow you Jesus. And in so doing that, they will choose to start looking for friendship situations that are more about destination, more about purpose first.

Lord, I pray for those that maybe have tons of friends and maybe they've been leaning into the wrong ones, and how do they learn to lean into the right ones without just completely alienating or being mean or cruel to other people?

Lord, I pray you would take some of those people that have really have all these friendships that pulled in the wrong way and make them the influencer. May you somehow draw their friends to lean into them and wanna know about their Jesus.

Lord, I pray for parents who are struggling with this with their kids. I understand it. I know what it was like with my own. Lord, I pray that they will have the courage to not try to control the chill children, their kids, but have the clarity to show them Jesus. Lord, I I I pray that for the people who are maybe married

and they're they're what should be one of their closest friendships is they don't agree on where they're going. Lord, I pray you would grab the heart of both spouses and they both would say, I know where I wanna go. I wanna go where Jesus wants me to go. And then they can go together. But Lord, help us develop war buddies,

real friendships, ones built for those battles of life that'll help us get where you want us to go to be mighty men, mighty women who trust you and have fully engaged with you. I just thank you and I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.