Focused on Friends

It's great to have you with us wherever you're from in the whole world and joining us from around the world on Facebook live. It is so fantastic to have you with us. My name is René, one of the pastors here. What blew me away was that he was playing on a violin he made. He makes violins and I make oatmeal. I don't know what I can make that's amazing. Hey, let me start with a quick question. How many of you show hands, how many of you remember the glory days of the San Francisco 49ers? How many of you can remember this? Oh, those were good days. Alright, shout it out. Who was our star quarterback in those days? Joe Montana. Now in that run of back-to-back Super Bowls, kind of those late 80s era, who was our star wide receiver in those days? Of course, it was Jerry Rice. Now in that same era, who was Terrence Flagler? Anybody shout it out. Who was he? Nobody knows. You know why? He was their special teams kick return specialist. He was on special teams and here's the problem with being on special teams. Most people don't know a single member of any of the 49ers Super Bowl winning special teams units, even though they all got a ring and even though they all deserve their Super Bowl ring because everybody knows you cannot win a championship without a good special teams unit, without a special teams unit that is talented, without a special teams unit that is well coached.

More recent example, our own Golden State Warriors. Everybody knows any Warriors fans here today? Let me hear it. Who are the players that are on screen right now pictured? Seth Curry, Kevin Durant. Everybody knows KD and Steph, but does anybody remember what their team slogan has been for the last four years? Anybody know? A couple of people said it: strength in numbers, not strength in superstars. Precisely because they know, and basketball teams prove this year after year, superstars are not enough. LeBron James, you need a bench or the superstars cannot do it by themselves. And so, let's say this phrase out loud together: strength in numbers. That could be the subtitle of the message today because what I want to talk about is how the exact same thing is true of life. If you want to be all you can be, all God wants for you, all God has for you, you cannot do it alone.

There's a lot in the Bible about this. Some of the greatest verses are in Ecclesiastes 4:9–10. And you know what? Let's read this out loud and remember, strength in numbers, people. So let me hear you. Let's read this together: Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble, right? Well, today we're going to look at a Bible passage full of inspiring examples of this truth, but I want to warn you right now. We're going to look at a part of the Bible that you have probably never studied before in your life. Probably, in fact, I would say over 90 percent of Christians, even those who regularly attend church and consider themselves kind of veteran Christians, have probably never even read—not really read—the verses we're going to look at today.

So this is going to be fresh and brand new for practically every person in this room. Even though these verses are overlooked, even though they contain some fantastic mysteries and tales that are amazing to unravel. So let's dig into this. Grab your message notes that look like this. Focused is the name of our verse-by-verse study in the book of Colossians in the Bible. We've been in this for about three months, and today we wrap it all up focused on friends. We are in the very final verses of this book of the Bible: Colossians 4:7–18. Quick reminder context: Colossians is a letter written by a man named Paul. He was one of the early Christian leaders, the Apostle Paul. He's in prison. He's under house arrest in the capital of the world at that time, in Rome, and he sends this letter over land and sea across to a little church way over in what is now known as Turkey, in a city called Colossi.

And here in these very final verses, he closes out his letter with a list of names that at first glance reads like the credits that roll at the end of a movie. Most people don't stay for the credits. They just get up and leave because there's just one name after another, and most people just skip right over this part of the Bible. They don't even read it. They just see a bunch of Latin-sounding names and they go, we've never heard of these people; must not be important. But these are Paul's special teams unit. These were his best friends who traveled with him. You read about Paul's ministry; he almost never traveled alone. He always took his team with him. These were the people who made the great Apostle Paul's ministry possible. Even the great Paul could not do it alone.

And when I look at this list, I see six indispensable types of friendships I need and you need in your life. If Paul needed these kinds of people in his life, as capable as he was, then so do we. And here's how important this is to study right now. I just read this week the conclusions from a 20-year study on friendship and the state of friendship in America, and here was their conclusion: people have far fewer friends now than 20 years ago, despite the increasing similarity of social media. We've got way more Facebook friends, but far fewer real friends. Does this surprise anybody here today? Another study I read from Duke University found that a quarter of Americans have no close friends at all. Why? We're so busy, so distracted, so task-oriented, and the solution these studies suggest is you and I need to be intentional about friendships. As they say, friendships don't happen by accident, especially right now at this moment in our cultural history when everybody's so busy going around and is out of practice on how to make friends.

So how do I do that? How do I make friends with intention? Well, let's start by looking at the kinds of friends that Paul talks about here because it's not about friendship volume; it's about friendship character. And so you want to make these kinds of friends. And as we go through this, I want you to ask yourself: do I have this kind of friend in my life? If you do, treasure it, value it, nourish it. If you don't, pray about it that God would open your eyes to who could be this person for you and ask yourself, can I be this kind of friend? And I gotta tell you, you know what? I am preaching from a place of conviction because I get busy, I get distracted. I don't think I'm a very good friend in many ways. I've learned a lot through this passage. I pray and hope you will too.

So let's dig into this. Jot these down. First, everybody needs what you could call a helping friend who is always there. A helping friend. Colossians 4, starting in verse 7, Paul says, Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He's the guy delivering this letter to the Colossians. He's a dear brother, a faithful minister, and a fellow servant in the Lord. Let's talk about Tychicus. The name Tychicus literally means lucky. In English, that would be his name, lucky. Now, maybe that's a nickname; maybe that's his actual name. But let me show you whether it's a nickname or his real name why I think they kept calling this guy lucky. He is actually mentioned five times in the New Testament, and you've probably never heard his name before. He's kind of the Forrest Gump of the Bible. Nobody's ever heard of him, but if you look for him, he is there in the background at so many key moments.

Like the first time we meet him is in the 20th chapter of Acts when the Apostle Paul hatches a plan. And here's his plan. The Apostle Paul, it's one of his greatest desires—maybe his number one desire—is for Jewish believers and Gentile believers to get along. But already in his life, he starts seeing this rift, this tension happen. So he's got a plan for how to get them together, and here's his plan: he's going to collect an offering from three Gentile churches in Europe, in Macedonia, what is now Greece, and he's going to collect this offering from these three churches, and he's going to bring it all the way over to Jerusalem. And he's going to give it to the Jewish believers there and say, I know there's a famine going on; you guys don't have enough to eat. Look how much the Gentiles, the non-Jews, care about you. But he's not only going to bring the offering, kind of a second harvest food bank offering, right, for these people. He's going to bring some actual Gentiles. He's going to bring people that are like exhibit A of Gentiles that love God so much and love the Lord and value the Bible. He's going to bring them over here to say, look, they don't have fangs; they love you. They care for you. Let's all get along. And the guy he chooses to be his exhibit A is Tychicus. In other words, Tychicus was kind of a real dude. He was a real reliable guy.

So Tychicus goes on this trip, and like the wheels come off. Ever go on a road trip where everything went wrong? This is what happens with this road trip that the Apostle Paul goes on. There's riots, and there's misunderstandings, and there's beatings, and there's arrests. And yet somehow, we read in the book of Acts, Paul keeps getting pummeled and detained and falsely accused and so on, yet we never read about Tychicus getting arrested or beaten or anything else. Lucky, okay? Next time we see Tychicus is in these two verses in Colossians and in Ephesians. Now, it's years later. Paul is under house arrest in Rome, but Tychicus is free. Lucky. So Paul says, hey lucky, get over here. I'm going to give you some super important scrolls to deliver. Now, it's not going to be easy. You're going to have to travel over a thousand miles across land and sea to three different cities, and Tychicus is like, okay, man, I'm there for you, whatever you need. And these scrolls end up in our Bibles as the books of Colossians, Ephesians, and a little book named Philemon that we're going to talk about in just a second.

And there's more. Years later, Paul has a second imprisonment in Rome under Nero, and this was the crazy bloodthirsty Caesar who decides to blame the Roman fire on Christians and tries to round up all of the Christians in Rome and kill them. And he's very successful at it. But guess who escapes his dragnet? Lucky Tychicus. And at the end of the book of Titus, Paul’s in prison; he's going to be executed by Nero, but Titus is free. So he writes this letter to Titus, who is a pastor on the island of Crete, and he says, I'm going to send you a substitute teacher so you can come and visit me before I die. Now, legendarily, the people on the island of Crete were cantankerous. They were divisive. They gave Paul fits. And so who could he find who gets along with everybody? Who could go to the island and substitute for Titus? I'm going to choose Tychicus. And then when Paul writes the very last letter he ever writes to Timothy, he's the pastor at Ephesus, he says, Tim, I'm going to send a sub for you so you can see me before I die, and guess who he sends? Tychicus. I'm telling you, this guy is everywhere. If you start looking for him, it's like, need something done? Get lucky; he'll do it.

And I really want you to hear this because there are those of you here, that's you. You always seem to be there when there's a need. You're super steady. You're helpful. You're happy to be a behind-the-scenes person or to substitute teach whatever is needed in church or with your friends. Need babysitting on there? Need your oil changed? I'll do it. You need a lift? I got your back. And sometimes you put yourself down, like all I do is substitute and give people rides and kind of help out. I'm not really that important. You know, I'm not an Apostle Paul. How important do you think Tychicus was? These letters Tychicus delivered outlasted the Roman Empire. They outlasted the churches to whom they were sent. They lasted all the way 2,000 years to Santa Cruz County, where we have been blessed by this study in Colossians, which would have been impossible if not for the faithful helping friend that Tychicus was. What I'm saying is you don't know the ripple effects of what you do. You might feel like at this stage in your life, I'm not doing something quote-unquote great. I'm just taking care of the kids or the grandkids or working some temp job or helping out at church. Never despise little things, you know, that you can do for God because you have no idea the huge impact that those things could ultimately have.

And check this out. At the very end of this section, verse 15, Paul greets a woman, and he says, greet those in Laodicea and Nympha. It's a woman's name and the church that meets in her house. Nympha is apparently a woman with a gift of hospitality because the church meets in her house. Please do not ever put yourself down with, I don't have a great ministry. I just love being hospitable, hosting small groups, having people over. Don't ever denigrate that. Nympha is in the Bible because she loved to have people over. That is a big deal to Jesus. She is one of those helping friends on special teams, right?

Okay, now next I want you to see that not all Paul's friends were friends that gave to him because, number two, he talks about a weak friend whose burden I bear. And we all actually need this in our lives too. Somebody who not only helps me but somebody I help, not just for their sake but for our sake so we don't stay self-centered. Paul says, verse 9, he Tychicus is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother who is one of you, and they will tell you everything that's happening here in Rome. Okay, who is Onesimus? What a story. Turns out he was the slave of a guy here in the Colossian church, a guy named Philemon. We can call him Phil. But Onesimus runs away, you know, understandably, who wants to be a slave? And do you know what could happen legally to a runaway slave if he was caught and his owner decided to press charges? Any guesses? Anybody ever seen the old movie Spartacus, the Kirk Douglas movie? Do you remember the row of crosses going into Rome with people on those crosses? Those were crucified slaves whose only crime was running away and rebelling against their masters. And that's not fiction; that sort of thing happened regularly in the Roman Empire. Runaway slaves could be executed. But Onesimus took the risk and he runs away, and he runs all the way to Rome, the biggest city in the world, hoping to get lost in the crowd. And you know what happened? Somehow he runs right into the Apostle Paul, who actually leads him to Christ. And then Paul writes a letter to the former owner of Onesimus, Philemon, and Paul actually sends Onesimus back to Colossae with guess who? Tychicus sees in on this story too.

And look what Paul says to Philemon. This is the man who formerly owned Onesimus, and this is in your Bibles as the book of Philemon, one of the shortest books in the Bible. It's so fascinating. You got the context for this. Paul says, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. I appeal to you for my, what? My son, Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Perhaps the reason that he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever. Now watch this: no longer as a slave but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He's very dear to me and even dearer to you, both as a what? Fellow man. Open your eyes, Philemon. He's your fellow man and as a dear brother in the Lord. So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. Wow, he said, Philemon, you know the right thing to do. You need to not only not press charges; you need to set Onesimus free.

So what happened? What did Philemon do? The Bible doesn't say, but we have an ancient letter written by a man named Ignatius, one of the early church leaders, a few years after the New Testament was finished. Ignatius is the bishop over all the churches in Asia Minor; that means he oversees all these churches. And guess what? Ignatius writes a letter to the Colossians, and in that letter is this sentence. He says, since then, in the name of God, I received your entire congregation. He's saying since I recognize you as an official church in the person of who? Onesimus, a man of inexpressible love and your, what? Pastor. I beseech you in Christ Jesus, love him and all who are like him. What? Onesimus actually becomes the pastor of the Colossian church. So we know Philemon not only takes him back; Philemon not only doesn't press charges; Philemon not only sets him free; Philemon supports him to be the next pastor of the church in that era in world history. That slave to pastor? That could only happen in Christianity, people. This was 1,840 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. So my question is this: who is your Onesimus? Who are you advocating for? Who are you helping to set free? Who do you see potential in? Everybody needs that friend, and everybody needs to be that friend to somebody. Somebody that you know right now is in bondage and they want out of that bondage, and they just need your advocacy to become all they can be. So pray about that.

And then third, there's the compassionate friend who is there through it all. And you know what? The compassionate friend may be the most universally needed friend. I'm going to get back to the Bible in just a second, but let me go to the internet for just a second. Anybody love those unusual animal friendship stories that pop up once in a while on the internet? I'm a sucker for these, like this is Bubbles the elephant and Bella the black lab. Now, Bubbles was actually rescued from ivory poachers in Africa who were trying to take her tusks off, and Bella the black lab was also an abandoned dog. And at first, Bubbles the elephant was depressed, but Bella the black lab just started hanging out with her. Just wherever she went, the black lab would go along, and now they're inseparable, and Bubbles' mood has completely changed. Now she's just happy all the time. Or what about Torque the dog and Shrek the owl chick? Shrek the owl chick? That's kind of—I didn't know that this could happen with owls, but she had a nervous breakdown and she actually started killing her own children. And this little Owlette—I don't even know if that's right, but this little Owlette, I'll say with confidence, was the only one who survived. And she was brought to an animal shelter, and Torque the dog, who also was in the animal shelter, just decided, I'm going to be there for Shrek. I'm going to be Shrek's mama, and Shrek is now thriving. She has a buddy who is teaching her how to use the remote, so she's happy.

Alright, back to the Bible. No, one more—I can't resist these. This is Dennis the duckling and Fred the Labrador. So the mama duck and all the other ducklings were eaten by a fox, but Fred's owner chased the fox away and took this one abandoned duckling that was left and brought it to his house. And his dog Fred just decided to be there for Dennis, and everybody's like, oh, this is so beautiful. Why does our heart go out? Why do we resonate with all of these pictures? Well, I think it's because this is the most universal kind of friendship. This kind of friendship goes down so deep, a level deeper than words. You could call it the friendship of presence, your presence. And this is what you see in the next verse. Paul says, my fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings. He doesn't tell us anything about Aristarchus, nothing that Aristarchus did except for this: he's my fellow prisoner. Now, most scholars think for complicated reasons it's unlikely that Aristarchus is an actual legal prisoner. It's much more likely that he just chose to be with Paul in his prison. He sees Paul in Rome under house arrest, and he just goes, knocks on the door, says, Paul, I just want to sit there with you, just arm around you.

This is the kind of friend who comes into your prison, whatever your prison is. It could be a prison of depression, a prison of despair, a prison of addiction, or maybe it's a literal prison. And they come on in, and they sit next to you, and they don't say a lot, but they're there with you. Somebody said a friend is one who's in your corner when they see you're cornered. Proverbs 17:17 says a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity. And listen carefully, if you ever put yourself down because I'm not an Apostle Paul with a big upfront ministry, I'm not even the Tychicus type, I'm not adventurous, and I'm not handy, I'm not the kind of guy who can do whatever needs to be done, but you are this kind of friend. Yeah, I don't even know what to say. I just show up when somebody kind of just needs somebody. Listen, you may be the most important kind of friend. This is so important. This is why we have Stephen ministry here, where we train volunteers to be this kind of a friend. And this is why we have literal prison and jail ministry here. Can you be that kind of friend to somebody?

By the way, let me just add here. I appreciated Elizabeth's prayer for the fires that are happening up in Redding. She wouldn't tell you this, but Elizabeth and Andrew are putting up in their house some evacuees from the fire. And you'll remember that last year during the Napa fires, we asked you, hey, if you are interested in housing anybody who's a victim of a disaster, let us know. A lot of you gave us your contact info. We might be activating that because there's a lot—there's 46,000 evacuees from Redding who need a place to stay, and some of you are already putting some of them up. So you might be getting a phone call. These people, you know what they need most of all? They need shelter, but they need somebody who just says, brother, sister, I am there for you. Are you that friend to somebody?

And then fourth, there's the restored friend who God redeems after a fall. Great story, another great story here. Verse 10, Paul says, they greet you as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him. I want to tell you how incredible it is that Paul wrote those words on the screen. I want to tell you the amazing story behind these words, and this is going to encourage you. Mark was a young guy years before Paul writes this when he goes with Paul and Barnabas on their very first missionary journey. Paul and Barnabas are already just like this legendary duo, right? Going out, spreading the gospel. Midway through, things get tough, and Mark takes off. He goes running back home. He abandons the team, and Paul is furious. He sees this as unreliability. He sees this as betrayal.

Later on, time for their next missionary journey, Barnabas, whose name means son of encouragement, lives up to his name and he says, alright, let's put you get to the team up. Hey, let's give Mark a second chance. And Paul goes, not a chance. And Paul and Barnabas have a massive fight over Mark and how to handle Mark. And if you think this is an exaggerated picture, the Bible says their disagreement was so sharp they separated. These were guys who'd been through riots, and these were guys who'd been through all kinds of shipwrecks and who knows what else. Nothing separated Paul and Barnabas; they were like this. And now a relationship issue? Boom! And they never are a team again. Barnabas takes John Mark with him and sailed for Cyprus; Paul chose Silas and left. They split. It's like Yoko split up John and Paul; Mark split up Barnabas and Paul. It was just a mess. And here's the thing: life is messy.

And I love that this story is in the Bible because it shows even mature Christians of goodwill can still have a falling out. Life is messy; stuff happens. And then grace is messy. Somebody fails; one person says they've had enough time; give them grace. Let's take John Mark. Another person says, not a chance. This has been happening for 2,000 years. But that's not the end of this story because Mark ends up being mentored by Peter, Peter who is no stranger to failure, denied Jesus three times. Peter, who knows firsthand about second chances, he got one from Jesus himself. And maybe that's precisely the reason that Peter's the one who mentors Mark to the point where he calls Mark my son. And then Mark's relationship with Paul is restored because years later in this verse, and now you know the story behind these words, Paul tells the Colossians, hey, there's this guy who visited me here in Rome. His name is Mark. Good people. I endorse him. He comes to you; you welcome him. Mark's a good guy. This was huge.

Now, if the story ended there, it would be great, but it gets even better because after this, Mark gets to do what only three other people in the history of the planet ever did. He writes one of the four gospels, the gospel of what? Tychicus? No, Mark. Listen, maybe you've had some failures in life, and maybe you've had some failures even in ministry. Mark's life is a testimony: you can be used by God again. You can be on God's special team again, that God is the God of the second chance, that God heals and God restores and God uses so-called failures. And it shows that if Jesus Christ is really working in our lives, your life and my life, then at some point we're going to get the nudge to go to somebody with whom we've had a falling out and say, hey, let's be friends again. Maybe even let's minister together again. Timing is everything, but you know what that shows? That shows Jesus is actually alive and is doing something inside of you. This is rich stuff, isn't it?

Okay, last two very quick. We all also need a praying friend who remembers my need. And Paul had somebody like that too. Verse 12, he says, Epaphras, a member of your own fellowship and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. Now watch the way he describes him. He only talks about him doing one thing, but he takes two verses to describe it. He always prays earnestly for you, asking God to make you strong and perfect, fully confident that you're following the whole will of God. I can assure you he prays hard for you and also for the believers in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Watch this: the word translated here, prays earnestly, that same exact word is translated other times in the Bible as fight. So this phrase can literally be rendered, he fights for you in his prayers. You heard the term prayer warrior? That's where this comes from. Some of you, you've heard the description of friends so far in your life: my adventuring days are over. Maybe I'm homebound. Maybe you're watching on Facebook live. You're thinking, I can't even go and be with people. The only thing I can do is pray. That's all that's left to me. Do not put yourself down. That is mighty. Prayer is mighty; prayer is powerful; prayer is undervalued. So can you be this type of friend to somebody? And do you intentionally look to develop this in your friends? Do you ask your friends to pray for you? Do you even just ask?

And then lastly, there's a very important type of friend. Write this down: the sarcastic friend who cuts till I bleed. No, just wanted to see if you were awake. I mean the inspiring friend who helps me succeed. Nobody needs a sarcastic friend. Come on! Paul mentions our dear friend Luke, the doctor. Now check this out. Who was Luke? We know him from the Bible. He's in the Bible a lot. He was very well educated. He's a physician, a medical doctor. Maybe took care of Paul's eyes. Now, here's an interesting thing. Who do you think most people would say wrote most of the New Testament? Who wrote most of the New Testament? Paul, everybody. Paul. Well, check this out. Paul wrote 13 books in the New Testament, more books than anybody else. That's 23% of the New Testament. Luke only wrote two books, but they're way longer. He actually wrote 27%. Luke actually wrote more of the New Testament than anybody else, including Paul.

What I'm saying is this: Luke was maybe the only person on earth who was more than a match for Paul in terms of ability, in terms of talent, in terms of intellect, in terms of ambition, in terms of impact. And that's a vital kind of friendship to have. I'm sure his friendship with Paul spurred Paul on. This happened so many times. Did you know, look at the screen, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien were friends long before they were famous writers, and they spurred each other on? Did you know that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were friends way before their biggest hits? And I could give you many, many more examples. So many times a talented friend brings another young talent along, and we all need someone like that in our lives. Maybe somebody a little bit further down the road than you who kind of challenges you, prods you along, you know? One of the most influential friendships I've had since I've been here was with Brian King. Many of you knew Brian. Brian was the president at Cabrillo College next door. He was a believer. He was on our church board here. His family was super involved at Twin Lakes.

And one time Brian asked me out to lunch, and he says, René, I got a question for you. He says, would you say that you do outreach to the community? And I said, well, of course, man, that's what my ministry is all about. He goes, well, how do you do outreach to the community? And basically, I said, we do church services that the community I think would love, and the doors are open, and whoever wants to come into church, well, they're welcomed. He said, that's not exactly what I mean by outreach to the community. I said, oh, well, you mean like that beach cleanup day that we do once a year? He goes, that's good. He goes, I'm talking about you personally. Do you hang out with leaders in the community? Do you go to the Chamber of Commerce meetings? Are you a member there? Do you ever go to Rotary? Do you ever get involved with Second Harvest Food Bank? I said no, why would they want me? Why would they want a pastor at something like this? And he said, believe me, René, it would be awesome. I'm going to take you under my wing because Brian was already doing all those things, and he ends up taking me to all these groups, introducing me. And now I go to some of these groups every month. I become super involved, and I love it because it's a great way to build bridges into the community. Brian was a genius who prodded me on in that direction.

Now, what are the odds that I ever would have become involved with our local Chamber of Commerce if Brian had not had that conversation with me? Zero. We all need somebody who's a little further along than us who is challenging us out of our comfort zone. So do you intentionally look for these people? Let me ask you this question: are you even open to this? Or do you just want your friends to just affirm you and make you feel comfortable all the time? Now, you might look at this six friendship list and you might be like, that's great, but how do I get friends like this? And more important, how do I keep friends like this? Well, honestly, I think in this passage we could talk a lot about this, but I think there is one key for the Apostle Paul, and you could summarize it in two words: honor them. Something from these verses that's so obvious, but that's so easy to miss. Paul is just honoring one person after another. Have you picked that up? This is my good friend. Let me tell this guy; you honor him. He's awesome. Well, this is another person; my great—this person's just great. I love this person; it's like my son. Why are we more like that to people?

You know, there's two different ways that you could make friends, basically. And I want to demonstrate really quickly. Everybody just get to your feet right now. Just go ahead and stand up where you are. Because I'm going to give you a chance to do a seven-second experiment, but you have to be on your feet if you can get to your feet now. Listen carefully to these instructions, and don't start until I say go. I want you in seven seconds to greet as many people as you can, but hang on, stop. Greet them this way, with the attitude that you're cooler than them, and you are looking for a cooler friend than them to greet. You got seven seconds. Ready? Go!

Alright, five, four, three, two, one, stop. Now don't sit down, don't sit down, but look up here for your instructions. We're going to A-B this. I'm going to give you another seven-second experiment, but this time, here's your instructions: try to greet as many people as you can in the next seven seconds, but you are greeting them like they are your long-lost best friend. Ready? Go!

Alright, three, two, one, stop. Friends, everybody have a seat. Do you get from that what's happening? Those are two extremes, but in life, when you are having a relationship with somebody, when you're making new friends, when you're treasuring your old friends, you're one of those two extremes. You're either always on the lookout for someone a little better, someone a little cooler, and you feel like you're above everybody, some version of that, or you're looking at everybody—the people in your life right now, the new people you meet—like they are your most treasured best friend. And the Apostle Paul is the best example ever in these verses of that second example. Paul's not stingy with his praise. So why are we to our friends? Why do we say, hmm, let's go see a movie when we mean, I love you? Why do we say, dude, let's grab lunch sometime when we say, I am so grateful to God for you; you're like my brother? Why do we act too cool for school even when we're feeling you are one of the most important people in my life?

You know what I've noticed? People do this for celebrities. People go up to celebrities when they get to meet them in person. They have no idea what kind of person this person is, but they're all big fans. Love your work, right? What if you treated your own friends and family that way? Mom, big fan of your sandwiches. You're awesome. Honey, love your work and the way you interact with the kids. That's awesome. That is Paul in these verses. Honor your friends this week because remember, big idea this morning: strength in numbers. That words, you can't do it alone. So be intentional about seeking and cultivating your friendships.

Now let's wrap up the whole Colossians series in a couple of minutes because the best thing about friendship from a Christian perspective is that Jesus says, I have called you friends. In Jesus Christ, you have the helpful friend, you have the friend who's with you, you have the restorative friend, you have the redeeming friend, you have the inspiring friend. You have all these friends faithfully, without fail, in Jesus Christ. And you have to know that you have that by his grace, not anything you have to earn or merit. Why? Because your friends, as good as they are, they're going to let you down. And if you don't know that Jesus is the friend who never fails, then at some point or another, you're going to go, you know what? Friends hurt, so I'm just going to build a little wall around my heart because when I get close to people, they hurt me. But if you know the most important friend you've got is Jesus and he'll never hurt you, then you have the power to show grace to other people. And this comes up in the very last verse of Colossians. Let's look at it. Paul says, I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. He's an old man, and he picks up the pen from the person he's been dictating it to, and he scratches out in big letters, remember my chains. And let me pause there to say we need to keep remembering the chains of our brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world. There's pastors alive right now this morning who could have written that sentence, like Andrew Brunson in Turkey. Pray for them.

And then Paul writes the phrase that ends Colossians. It summarizes Colossians. It summarizes his whole life message: grace be with you. For Paul, it's always about grace. He starts Colossians with grace; he ends Colossians with grace. And in between, he just keeps saying, don't get distracted from grace. If you want to know how to summarize the book of Colossians, here's the key verse right in the middle: since then you've been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. The principle that applies to life from the whole book of Colossians is this: what you focus on is what you move toward. If I focus on Jesus, I move toward Jesus. I become like Jesus, full of grace, a friend of sinners. So let's keep focused on him. In fact, let's focus on him together in prayer right now. Let's stand up together again, and let's wrap up the series by praying together, and then we're just going to sing one final hymn together before we go. Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for calling us friends. Friends! And we want to stay focused on you. So, Lord, thank you for the blessing of friendship. Help me to find friends, help me to be a friend, help me to value and cherish and cultivate friendship. And maybe some are here today who for the first time or as a recommitment want to pray, Jesus, I need you as my friend. I'm a sinner, but I heard you're a friend of sinners. So come into my life right now and help me to grow not in religion, but in my relationship with you as my faithful friend. In your name, I pray. Amen.