Forrest: Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast.
Forrest: Each week we open God's word together to help you meet God and multiply good in your everyday life.
Forrest: We're so glad that you've taken time to join us for this week's sermon.
Forrest: And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and follow us on social media so you never miss a message.
Forrest: Now, let's dive into this week's sermon.
Jordan: Well, as Becca mentioned a moment ago, my name is Jordan.
Jordan: I have the honor of serving at Crossroads Church in Cincinnati as the director for young adults.
Jordan: And before I get into my talk, I just want to take a quick moment to say that I love Multiply Church.
Jordan: My family, uh my wife Lauren and I, uh, we have been living in North Carolina for 10 years.
Jordan: We just recently moved to Cincinnati, but we've been following along with Multiply really since the beginning.
Jordan: We've got friends, we have family that are attached and really rooted and tethered into this church.
Jordan: And so we've been supporting, we've been praying.
Jordan: And over the summer, uh summer of 2025, I had the opportunity uh to be here and to preach a message, which is what was a huge honor.
Jordan: It was on the power of just leading uh and serving the next generation.
Jordan: And anytime I have the opportunity to be like a guest speaker, preacher, to bring a message to a group of people, I take that very seriously because it's a big responsibility.
Jordan: That's a huge honor.
Jordan: I think, though, that the real honor is being invited back.
Jordan: So thank you for having me back.
Jordan: It was great to be with you uh in the summer, and I'm just really excited for the for the word that I believe God has for us this morning.
Jordan: So, as I mentioned, my family just moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, uh like eight months ago, eight or nine months ago.
Jordan: So we're new, we're still getting it all figured out, and we were doing some reflecting over just the year of 2025, like over the holidays.
Jordan: And it was a really big year for us as a family.
Jordan: Any big new life thing that could happen to you as an adult, we pretty much checked every box.
Jordan: We moved to a new city, I started a new job, we became a part of a new church, we bought a new house.
Jordan: A few months after moving to the city, my wife was driving home from playing volleyball one night and her car broke down on our street.
Jordan: And so we bought a new car.
Jordan: And a few weeks after we moved to the city, I came home from work one day, and my wife said, Hey, surprise, we're having a baby.
Jordan: It's like, okay, well, hey, in the chaos of all of it, how about we just throw a new human into the mix?
Jordan: She's actually due in just a few weeks.
Jordan: We're gonna have our second, we have a daughter, we're getting ready to have a son, and I can't wait.
Jordan: But it's a lot.
Jordan: It's just a lot going on.
Jordan: A lot of new, a lot of transition, a lot of chaos.
Jordan: And can I tell you, as we were just reflecting on 2025, the number one question that my family was wrestling with throughout that entire process of moving to a new place and taking uh part in all of these new things?
Jordan: The number one question was are we gonna have any friends?
Jordan: Number one.
Jordan: Like, who are our people going to be?
Jordan: We're doing all this new stuff.
Jordan: Are we gonna have anyone to help like carry the burden with us?
Jordan: To like share the share the load with?
Jordan: Is it gonna be hard for us to make new friends?
Jordan: I haven't really done that in a long time.
Jordan: That seems kind of difficult putting yourself out there.
Jordan: Would it be easier to just stay connected with our North Carolina friends and just kind of do the long distance friendship thing?
Jordan: Would that be easier?
Jordan: Uh, what if it's actually really hard to make new friends?
Jordan: It was like dominating conversations, like new job, new church, new city, all these things.
Jordan: We weren't even talking about that.
Jordan: It was just like, who are our people?
Jordan: And I can report to you eight months in.
Jordan: We do have some friends, praise God.
Jordan: Yes, but also, yes, it's really hard to make friends.
Jordan: We have some friends, but it's really hard to make friends, to put yourself out there, to do new things.
Jordan: We're in the middle of a collection of messages at Multiply called Basecamp.
Jordan: We're using this climbing, mountain, outdoorsy imagery to talk about what it looks like to go back to the basics of spiritual growth.
Jordan: And I am here today to talk about making friends.
Jordan: Making friends.
Jordan: And I use that phrase intentionally because making friends implies that there is a level of proactivity, vulnerability, intentionality, initiative, effort that goes into making and building friendships and relationships.
Jordan: I mean, you know this as you get older, friendship doesn't just happen on accident.
Jordan: I think some of us, when we were kids, grew up and we were like, dude, this is making friends is easy.
Jordan: You're hanging out outside in the neighborhood, playing in the cul-de-sac, you get into preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, you just around people like you all the time, all day, every day, classrooms, dorm rooms, sports teams, extracurricular activities.
Jordan: And I think a lot of us actually like started to believe a false narrative that making friends is really easy.
Jordan: And I actually look back on that time and I have some friends that I've been with for a long time, but a lot of those people I look at and I'm like, were we actually friends, or was I just forced to be with you for eight hours a day?
Jordan: Like, I don't know if we were actually friends.
Jordan: I work with 18 to 29-year-olds at Crossroads Church.
Jordan: I was youth ministry for a long time, middle and high school.
Jordan: I'm starting to think that college and young adults is even better.
Jordan: I'm starting to believe that there's so much fun, tons of energy.
Jordan: But can I tell you that the number one thing that college students and young adults are looking for, it's not even close, is friendship.
Jordan: It's community.
Jordan: It's like, who are my people?
Jordan: Who do I have relationships with?
Jordan: Because a lot of them are in or entering or leaving a transitional life stage.
Jordan: And the thing that they're really looking for and craving is stability.
Jordan: Like everything's moving, everything's changing, that thing's coming up, that's scary.
Jordan: I've never done that before.
Jordan: New life stage, and I'm looking for stability, oftentimes looking for stability in people.
Jordan: And so the most frequent question, we get this all the time.
Jordan: I get it emailed to me, we get messages, we get direct messages from Instagram, from young adults all the time, every single week, and they say, Am I allowed to come to an event alone?
Jordan: Like, am I allowed to come to an event by myself?
Jordan: And I don't really think that they're asking the question, Am I allowed to come alone?
Jordan: Like, I think they know they are allowed to come alone.
Jordan: What I really think they're trying to say is, help.
Jordan: I I need friends, I need relationship, I need some healthy community in my life, and I'm not really sure where I can find it.
Jordan: I don't know if you know this or not, but we are currently in a really interesting time in America, specifically as it relates to friends.
Jordan: Many researchers are describing it as a friendship crisis.
Jordan: A friendship crisis.
Jordan: Some social scientists are calling it the friendship recession.
Jordan: The recession of friendships.
Jordan: A few quick stats I want to share with you.
Jordan: This is from Pew Research 2023, a few years ago.
Jordan: Interviewed, surveyed thousands and thousands of people.
Jordan: They came back and reported that 61% of people say that they have four or less friends.
Jordan: Four or less friends.
Jordan: Another study done a few years earlier in 2021 from the American Survey Center.
Jordan: There's a lot going on here.
Jordan: I just want you to look at the top.
Jordan: It says that in 30 years from 1990 to 2021, the number of people who say that they have zero close friends has quadrupled in 30 years.
Jordan: Now it sits at 12%.
Jordan: People reporting, I have no close friends.
Jordan: In the year 2000, Robert Putnam wrote this famous book called Bowling Alone, and he kind of follows and documents really since the 1950s, this slow erosion of friendships, of community, and of shared life, specifically in the United States.
Jordan: And he says and argues that it's not that people stopped doing stuff and going out to places and bars and restaurants and bowling out and all this.
Jordan: It's not that people stopped doing that stuff.
Jordan: They're still doing it.
Jordan: It's just that people stopped doing it together.
Jordan: We moved from shared activity and interest to personalized and individualized activity and interest.
Jordan: And we don't really have time to get into social media.
Jordan: I'm not just gonna dog on social media.
Jordan: I have social media, I like social media, but for a lot of us, it just lied to us and it sold us something that it couldn't actually promise and deliver on, which was it promised all the benefits of friendship and community.
Jordan: Like you're gonna have followers, you're gonna be connected to people, it's gonna be amazing.
Jordan: It sold us all that stuff and then it under-delivered.
Jordan: Like it can't actually give us those things without the cost, without the effort, and without the work that is attached to those things.
Jordan: Like you can't get the good parts of community without paying the price and getting the side effects of friendships with it.
Jordan: It just doesn't work like that.
Jordan: It's not true.
Jordan: So my goal today is not to try to convince you that friends are important.
Jordan: I think all of us understand that.
Jordan: We would nod along with it, we would say, yeah, friendships are important.
Jordan: So my goal is not to convince you that they're important.
Jordan: God made us for relationships.
Jordan: And I'm gonna say something, maybe you've never heard this in church.
Jordan: It may even sound silly to you.
Jordan: God wants you to have friends.
Jordan: He wants you to have relationships and community.
Jordan: Some of you may not even think you're worthy of having friendships and relationships.
Jordan: I just need you to hear me say, God wants you to have friends.
Jordan: He does not want you to be a lone wolf, he didn't design you to operate that way.
Jordan: The question's not are friendships and net positive in your life.
Jordan: The question is, how does following Jesus influence and shape the way that I do make friends?
Jordan: How does following Jesus change and determine the way that I make and grow and build friendships in my life?
Jordan: So I want to look at a section of scripture today.
Jordan: It's in the book of Colossians, Colossians chapter three.
Jordan: Here's my hope, here's my prayer for you.
Jordan: That you hear truth from God's word, and that it inspires you and encourages you to be proactive in fighting against a friendship recession in your life.
Jordan: Like that this truth would pierce into you and that you would say, you know what?
Jordan: I gotta check into the game.
Jordan: I gotta get intentional, vulnerable, proactive in making and building godly friendships.
Jordan: So the book of Colossians, it's in the New Testament, it's written by the Apostle Paul, and the Apostle Paul is writing to this group of people who were measuring their spirituality on things like how much intellectual knowledge did they have.
Jordan: They were measuring their spirituality on how many rules they followed and kept.
Jordan: They were measuring their spirituality by things like how independent they were, like how self-sufficient, how self-sustaining are they.
Jordan: And so Paul actually writes to address this, and in chapters two and three, he says, Hey guys, I need to actually tell you what following Jesus is really about.
Jordan: It's not about getting a bunch of intellectual knowledge, believing all of the right things, knowing all the right words to say, so that you can pass the spiritual ACT test.
Jordan: Like that's not what following Jesus is about.
Jordan: No, he says following Jesus is you understanding that your entire life is getting transformed by Jesus.
Jordan: It's changing your thoughts, but it's also changing your heart, your actions.
Jordan: Everything about you is being transformed.
Jordan: And a lot of that, he writes, happens within the context of relationships that we have with other people.
Jordan: So it's not just a my spirituality is this thing that's just between me and God.
Jordan: No, it's a my spirituality is connected to my vertical relationship that I have with Jesus, but it overflows and is connected to every relationship that I have, and the two cannot be separated from one another.
Jordan: It's not how it works.
Jordan: So Colossians chapter 3, verse 12, he writes to those people and he says, Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Jordan: Make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you.
Jordan: Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
Jordan: Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony, and let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts.
Jordan: For as members of one body you are called to live in peace and always be thankful.
Jordan: Let the message about Christ in all its richness fill your lives, teach, counsel each other with all the wisdom that he gives, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.
Jordan: And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
Jordan: As alpine climbing really took off in like the 17th and 18th centuries, climbers were learning the hard way.
Jordan: They're just scaling mountains, and then climbers were learning the hard way that mountains are extremely unpredictable.
Jordan: They were learning the hard way that falling and failing and messing up is inevitable.
Jordan: It doesn't matter how good of a climber you are, it's inevitable.
Jordan: It's gonna happen.
Jordan: Solo climbers specifically were realizing that they had zero margin for error.
Jordan: The mountains are constantly changing, they're unpredictable, falls are inevitable.
Jordan: Solo climbers have no margin for error.
Jordan: And then some really smart climbers got together and they said, Hey, you know what?
Jordan: We got this idea.
Jordan: What about a rope team?
Jordan: This is a picture of a rope team right here.
Jordan: Some of you may have seen climbers that are tethered and attached to rope.
Jordan: And the idea behind a rope team is pretty simple.
Jordan: What if we got multiple climbers to all work together to accomplish the same goal?
Jordan: We could all be moving in the same direction and we could accomplish what we set out to do together.
Jordan: Everyone is physically connected, they're tethered to one another, tied onto the same rope, and they're spaced out intentionally so that they can move at the same pace, that no one moves too far ahead, no one lags behind and falls too far back.
Jordan: And when someone falls, not if, when someone falls, the rope becomes more tense, it tightens instantly, and other climbers dig themselves into the ground so that the fall is stopped before it becomes fatal.
Jordan: That's the beauty of the rope team.
Jordan: And they don't exist because climbers are weak or because they're not good at their job or because they have no idea what they're doing.
Jordan: Rope teams exist because climbing is hard.
Jordan: It's really hard.
Jordan: They exist because climbing is hard and it's safer and better together.
Jordan: And so in Colossians 3, 12 through 17, that section of scripture that we just read, Paul is actually talking to a group of Christians and he's teaching them how to get a spiritual rope team.
Jordan: That's what he's teaching them how to do.
Jordan: This is how to get a spiritual rope team.
Jordan: So I just want to draw out three things from scripture this morning from Colossians that I think are just gonna help you.
Jordan: They've been helpful for me, even as I've been writing this message, and really helpful in the area of making friends so that you can fight against a friendship recession in your life.
Jordan: So Colossians 3 12, we'll go back to it.
Jordan: It says this God chose you to be the holy people he loves.
Jordan: You must clothe yourselves with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Jordan: First thing I've got for you this morning is you gotta dress appropriately.
Jordan: Dress appropriately.
Jordan: There's nothing worse than showing up to a function, an event, a special occasion, a hang, and you are not dressed appropriately.
Jordan: You might be way overdressed, you might be terribly underdressed.
Jordan: Either way, I think it's bad.
Jordan: We could argue over which one's worse, but it's not good.
Jordan: And I don't know a whole lot about climbing, but what I do know is that you gotta have the right gear on.
Jordan: You gotta be dressed appropriately.
Jordan: And one of the functions of the rope team is ensuring that you are dressed appropriately for the mission that's about to take place.
Jordan: And you're also gonna be tethered to a group of people that are also dressed appropriately and they have the correct gear on.
Jordan: That's the heart and function for it.
Jordan: Colossians 3:12 actually tells us the kinds of things that should be put on so that I can be dressed for success, to move through life proactively, to build friendships and relationships.
Jordan: So, what does it say that I need to clothe myself with?
Jordan: Mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Jordan: And I read that list and I go, Man, that sounds like the best friend ever.
Jordan: I want that type of friend.
Jordan: Those are the kinds of friends that I want in my life, people that are gentle with me, they're patient with me, they're humble, they're kind, they're merciful.
Jordan: And then I was like, wait, hold up.
Jordan: That's the type of friend that I want to be.
Jordan: I don't just want all those people around me.
Jordan: I actually want to be that type of friend.
Jordan: And then as I thought on it a little bit further, I thought, that's how Jesus treats us.
Jordan: This is how Jesus treats me.
Jordan: And in John chapter 15, Jesus looks at his followers and he says, I don't call you slaves, I don't call you servants.
Jordan: If you're following me and you're rocking with me, I call you friend.
Jordan: I call you friend.
Jordan: This description right here, this is the type of friend that Jesus is.
Jordan: This is the type of friend Jesus is, and it's the type of friend that Jesus empowers you to be.
Jordan: Some of you think, oh, I can never be like this.
Jordan: No, no, no.
Jordan: If you know Jesus, the Holy Spirit's inside you, it's empowering you to achieve this level of friendship.
Jordan: It is actually doing that and can accomplish that for you.
Jordan: Okay, so Jesus empowers me to be a merciful friend.
Jordan: A merciful friend is someone who says, I see the mess in your life, but I'm still here.
Jordan: Still here, I'm not going anywhere.
Jordan: I want to move towards people in their moments of weakness, not away from them.
Jordan: That's what Jesus does.
Jordan: Jesus empowers me to be a kind friend.
Jordan: Kindness is the ability to grow into the type of person who says, you know what, I'm gonna do what's best for you, even when it's inconvenient for me.
Jordan: Kindness isn't something that we just intend to do.
Jordan: No, it's actually something that we do.
Jordan: Kindness is in action.
Jordan: Jesus empowers us to be humble friends.
Jordan: A humble friend is not someone who thinks poorly of themselves, it's just someone who thinks about themselves less often.
Jordan: And it's a person who looks at relationships and says, Hey, you know what's most important?
Jordan: Not me winning this argument.
Jordan: What's most important is actually us still being friends after this.
Jordan: That's what's most important.
Jordan: Jesus empowers you to be a gentle friend.
Jordan: Gentleness is not weakness, gentleness is strength that is under control.
Jordan: So a gentle friend looks at people with power, but they use that power and that strength to protect and care for people rather to force them to do what they want them to do.
Jordan: And Jesus empowers you to be a patient friend.
Jordan: This means that in your relationships, you are playing the long game.
Jordan: When your kids or your friends or your parents, or fill in whoever the blank, isn't moving at the speed that you want them to move at.
Jordan: They're not making the changes that you want them to make.
Jordan: You're still in the game.
Jordan: You're not quitting when it's hard, when things are moving slowly, or things get uncomfortable.
Jordan: That's a patient friend.
Jordan: And some of you may look at all these things and go, Well, those are just personality traits.
Jordan: Like some people have them and some people don't.
Jordan: And I would say, no, Jesus empowers you to be this type of friend, and these are all things that you can actually develop in your life as you grow with God.
Jordan: It's the clothes that you put on that you wear every single day to grow your friendships.
Jordan: Here's what I know is that even with all the right gear on, climbers still fall.
Jordan: They still make mistakes, they still mess up, they're only human.
Jordan: So the next verse, Colossians 3 13, says this is my personal favorite.
Jordan: Make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you.
Jordan: Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
Jordan: So you got to dress appropriately.
Jordan: Number two, commit to people who are going to let you down.
Jordan: This seems so against the grain.
Jordan: You're committing in friendship to people that are going to mess up.
Jordan: They're going to make mistakes.
Jordan: I think a lot of us love the idea of community and friendship.
Jordan: There's like this idealized version, like we're all gonna get together, we're gonna have meals, we're gonna do all these fun things, and it's like it's just perfect in your head, right?
Jordan: It's like this dream land.
Jordan: You think about friend groups from your favorite TV show, whether it's friends or stranger things or like whatever, whatever you're on, you look at this community and you're like, it's so amazing.
Jordan: I just want that type of friendship, and they do all these things together, and no one's ever mad at each other.
Jordan: It's fake.
Jordan: It's not real.
Jordan: That's not how actual friendships work.
Jordan: You're not the only person who gets frustrated when your friends go out and do something fun and you see it afterwards on Instagram or Facebook.
Jordan: That happens to me too, okay?
Jordan: Just a few days ago.
Jordan: It's still very fresh.
Jordan: It happens to all of us.
Jordan: People frustrate us, they offend us, they disappoint us.
Jordan: It's all good until someone does something that we don't like and we're like, that is so stupid.
Jordan: Like, why would you do that?
Jordan: Rope teams were invented because someone's gonna fail.
Jordan: Someone's going to fall.
Jordan: Someone is going to like be a bozo and they're gonna annoy you, like it's gonna happen.
Jordan: In Colossians 3:13, Paul assumes that people are going to frustrate you.
Jordan: He assumes people are gonna offend you, he assumes that people are gonna do you wrong.
Jordan: Paul just says that's not a reason to cut the rope on the relationship.
Jordan: It's gonna happen.
Jordan: Paul just says that's not a reason for you to cut ties.
Jordan: That's not an excuse.
Jordan: He actually turns it the other way and says, Jesus forgave you when you offended God.
Jordan: When your sin was offensive to God, Jesus forgave that, which means you must forgive the offenses of others.
Jordan: I believe that followers of Jesus should be the greatest at conflict resolution.
Jordan: The greatest people on the planet at conflict resolution.
Jordan: We should be.
Jordan: Followers of Jesus should be best in class at restoring and reconciling relationships.
Jordan: And that's because friendships are one of the greatest opportunities that you have in your life for the gospel to be on display.
Jordan: Like if you really believe this thing, you're gonna put it to the test in your friendships.
Jordan: Forgiveness is not just excusing people's bad behavior over and over and over and over and over again.
Jordan: That's not forgiveness.
Jordan: Forgiveness is I'm not gonna let a mistake or a minor offense be the reason that I end a relationship.
Jordan: That's forgiveness.
Jordan: The Bible says that while we were dead in our sin, Jesus rescued us, saved us, and restored us back to life.
Jordan: And then in 2 Corinthians, the Bible says, you, meaning like followers of Jesus, have now been given the assignment and the ministry of reconciliation.
Jordan: So God did it for you.
Jordan: Now it's on you to bring to the rest of the world.
Jordan: Some of us, maybe this year, it's not even for you really about making a bunch of new friends.
Jordan: Maybe for you, 2026 is the year that God convicts you and says, Hey, there were some minor offenses.
Jordan: Relationships got severed.
Jordan: And I actually believe the Holy Spirit might be leading some of us to go, hey, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna restore that thing.
Jordan: I'm gonna redeem that thing.
Jordan: I'm not gonna choose to continue to cut the rope and to cut ties when things get hard.
Jordan: I'm gonna forgive and I'm gonna stay tethered to friendships and relationships that I ought to be.
Jordan: I also know this that staying tethered together to people is only as good as people's open and honest communication.
Jordan: It's very important.
Jordan: Colossians 3 16 says, Let the message about Christ in all its richness fill your lives.
Jordan: Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom that he gives, and sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.
Jordan: Okay, so address appropriately.
Jordan: There's things that I put on every single day.
Jordan: Then number two is I'm committing to people that are gonna let me down.
Jordan: And then lastly, we gotta have clear and honest communication.
Jordan: Now, this one almost seems too simple.
Jordan: You just look at it and you're like, yeah, obviously.
Jordan: And I was almost hesitant to like even put it on there.
Jordan: I almost took it off, and I was like, no, you know what?
Jordan: I think this is the one that we all think we're better at than we are.
Jordan: It's the one that we go, yeah, I got that.
Jordan: Okay, yeah, be open, be honest, cool.
Jordan: And like, no.
Jordan: Do we really have this?
Jordan: Rope teams survive, they thrive, they succeed because there is constant clear communication.
Jordan: So, what happens on a mountain when people get into a sticky situation is uh they're certainly not silent about the danger that's getting ready to take place on that mountain.
Jordan: They're not making assumptions about what could or should happen.
Jordan: No, what's happening is that they're communicating the truth.
Jordan: Hey, watch out for that.
Jordan: You need to stop right now.
Jordan: Do you see what's happening?
Jordan: Like they're communicating the truth, even the uncomfortable truth, because it keeps people alive.
Jordan: I believe that you can measure the strength of your current friendships by the level of honesty and clarity that exists in your communication.
Jordan: Real friends, they tell each other the truth.
Jordan: That's what they do.
Jordan: Real friends tell each other the truth, they counsel and teach one another with the wisdom and truth that comes from God.
Jordan: So a biblical friendship looks like this I am gonna tell you the truth.
Jordan: And then when you tell me the truth, I'm gonna receive it.
Jordan: I'm gonna receive the truth.
Jordan: Ah, that hurt a little bit.
Jordan: I'm gonna receive it.
Jordan: We are gonna let the wisdom and truth of Jesus shape and lead this conversation and lead this friendship because we are committing to clear and honest communication.
Jordan: Rope teams cannot afford to not tell people when they're in danger.
Jordan: They can't afford to not want to have a hard conversation.
Jordan: Well, I don't want to tell that person they're getting ready to walk off a cliff because I just don't know how they might take it.
Jordan: They can't afford to do that.
Jordan: Rope teams can't afford to ignore red flags or to keep things surface level because people's lives are literally at stake.
Jordan: And I don't want to be overly dramatic about this, but I honestly do think that a lot of times Christians do not have deep friendships and relationships.
Jordan: Things remain surface level more times than not.
Jordan: And it's because we really struggle giving and receiving the truth.
Jordan: It's really difficult for us to teach, to counsel one another with scripture, with truth from God's word.
Jordan: We're scared to offend.
Jordan: Well, I just don't know if it's really my place for me to step in and say that thing.
Jordan: We'll justify it, we make all the excuses in the world.
Jordan: I just don't know how it's gonna be received, all the things that we come up with.
Jordan: Here's what Proverbs 27, 6 says.
Jordan: It's one of my favorite verses all time.
Jordan: Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.
Jordan: What does that mean?
Jordan: It means that I don't just want yes men in my life.
Jordan: Oh, Jordan, you're so great.
Jordan: Oh man, you're so amazing.
Jordan: I'm just telling you everything that you want to hear.
Jordan: You can never do anything wrong in my eyes.
Jordan: I'm just gonna skirt all the hard issues and things so that I can give you these nice little kisses and compliments.
Jordan: It's like that's great, but sometimes I need a sincere friend to wound me a little bit because they love me.
Jordan: I need them to tell me the thing that's hard to say and that's hard to communicate and that's hard to hear, but actually builds me up and makes me better.
Jordan: They're pointing out blind spots in my life.
Jordan: They're calling out things that where I was just walking into a dangerous situation, I was walking into a trap.
Jordan: They're seeing things that are off with my character, and they're not worried about how it's gonna be received.
Jordan: They say, No, I love you enough to wound you a little bit here.
Jordan: This truth's gonna build you, it's gonna make you better.
Jordan: I may go so far to say is that if your friends aren't wounding you with the truth from time to time, you may just look at the the relationship and say, I don't know, maybe we're not actually close to friends as I as I thought.
Jordan: Is there open and honest communication here?
Jordan: I just want to ask, what if this year you got connected to a spiritual rope team?
Jordan: What if this was your year to just go all in proactive, not waiting for the right people to come around?
Jordan: No, no, no, just they're they're all broken.
Jordan: You just said, you know what?
Jordan: I'm just gonna be proactive.
Jordan: I'm gonna dress appropriately, I'm gonna commit to people who are gonna let me down.
Jordan: I'm gonna have clear and honest communication, I'm gonna fight for those things.
Jordan: I don't know what your personal hang-ups might be when it comes to friendships.
Jordan: Maybe you've been burned in the past, maybe you don't feel like you're worthy of being loved or received or cared for.
Jordan: I don't know what it is.
Jordan: I just need you to know God wants you to have friends, He's made you for friendship.
Jordan: And I actually believe that some of us are going to go to the next level spiritually this year, and it's not because we did a new habit, and it's not because we listened, went to some conference, and got some new theological like position that we had never heard before.
Jordan: That stuff's great.
Jordan: It could actually be because you commit to making and building godly friendships.
Jordan: There's a famous quote in the like climbing, running, endurance training space.
Jordan: The funny part is that uh there's all there's like all different debates on who actually said it first.
Jordan: So I can't credit an author, but I want to share the quote with you.
Jordan: This is what it says if you want to go fast, go alone.
Jordan: If you want to go far, you go together.
Jordan: Going fast is overrated.
Jordan: That's how a lot of climbers got really hurt.
Jordan: Fast and alone.
Jordan: And some of us are just trying to blitz through this thing, speed through life.
Jordan: I don't need friends, I don't got time for that, and this is not working for us.
Jordan: And it's helpful for us to be honest about that to say, no, I think that this community, I think that God doesn't just really care about my speed.
Jordan: He wants me to go far, he wants me to go the distance, he wants me to make it, to win the prize, to run with endurance, the race that he's laid out for me.
Jordan: I want to go further this year.
Jordan: Like I want to go deeper, I want to go to places I haven't been before.
Jordan: I want to get better, and that's only gonna happen if I go with people.
Jordan: If we can go together, that's how it's gonna happen.
Jordan: I invite you into that.
Jordan: And maybe today, uh, just as I was talking a few moments ago, I was talking about this idea of Jesus as friend.
Jordan: Some of you are like, well, man, I've never really heard about that.
Jordan: I thought it was kind of just some like distancedy thing, and like, I don't really bug him like that because he doesn't really want anything to do.
Jordan: It's like, no, the Bible says that if you know Jesus, he calls you friend.
Jordan: You might be sitting here and you're like, I just I don't have that type of connection, that type of relationship with Jesus.
Jordan: I want to invite you into that because there's really good news for you.
Jordan: The gospel is the good news that eternal life and life to the full is available to anyone.
Jordan: Anyone.
Jordan: You're like, okay, what that sounds nice.
Jordan: Well, how do I get it?
Jordan: Well, it's really simple.
Jordan: It happens by grace alone, meaning there's nothing you could do to earn it or deserve it.
Jordan: You couldn't go to church enough times, try your best to obey all the rules, you couldn't ace the spiritual ACT test, like none of that stuff matters.
Jordan: It's a gift that you receive from God.
Jordan: It says grace.
Jordan: Well, then it happens through faith alone, meaning I had to believe it.
Jordan: The Bible says, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus died on the cross, that he rose from the grave, you will be saved.
Jordan: That's what it says.
Jordan: And lastly, it's by grace alone, through faith alone, and it happens in Christ alone.
Jordan: Meaning, Jesus is the only way to God, he's the only way to salvation.
Jordan: It comes through him and through him alone.
Jordan: There's no other person, no other name in heaven or on earth by which we can be saved.
Jordan: And that's the invitation for you today.
Jordan: Jesus could step in, he could save you, and he could call you friend.
Sallie: We're so grateful you joined us for this week's message.
Sallie: At Multiply, we believe life was never meant to be lived alone.
Sallie: If today you made the decision to follow Jesus, we'd be honored to walk with you on this journey.
Sallie: Visit multiplyky.com to let us know.
Sallie: We love you and we'll see you again soon.