You walk with will help shape the person you become. So find people who move you toward Jesus and become that kind of person for somebody else. That needs to be said twice. The people you walk with will help shape the person you become. Find people who move you toward Jesus and become that kind of person for somebody else. Let's pray and be dismissed. Look, it's not going to be any more profound than that. But I do have some of these atomic bomb proverbs that I've interspersed to this message. We'll start with Proverbs 13, 20. He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed. Everybody look at me. It matters who you walk with. Everybody has influencers. The question is not, are people influencing me? The question is, who is influencing me? Over these past couple of weeks, we've been talking about what it means to become more and better disciples. We've talked about the power of saying yes to Jesus. And Pastor Jacob laid that out for us, put the cookies on the bottom shelf, and everybody could eat. It was such a good message. We talked about the power of showing up, how being in the weekend gathering of the saints is critical for your spiritual health. But there's something else we desperately need if we're going to grow as disciples of Jesus. You know what it is? We need each other. When Jesus began his earthly ministry, one of the first things he did was gather people around him. He created an inner circle. Mark 3, verses 13 and 14 read this way. And he went up on the mountain and called to him those [00:40:00 - 00:48:00] He himself wanted. There's something of the doctrine of election in that phrase. And they came to him, and then he appointed twelve, and underline this in your Bible, that they might be with him. Isn't it true that Jesus preached to thousands in his earthly ministry? Yes or no? And he preached to thousands, but he brought the twelve inside. They traveled together, they ate together, and learned together, and served together, and argued together, and failed together, and they prayed together, and listen to me, Jesus changed them. More and better disciples are formed in life-changing friendships. I didn't say this to the first service, but I'm going to say it to you. It doesn't matter how much you like the programs that the church puts on. You may really, really enjoy the music ministry that we have here, and can I tell you, for 27 years, our music ministry has always been as good or better than churches ten times our size. The Lord has just blessed us with talent and great humble leaders, and you may love the music. It sounds like what you hear on Spotify, and you'd be right. You might really groove on the preaching. I hope some of you do. The student ministry, the children's stuff really helps your family, and some of you have been just absolutely overwhelmed by the power of God in our prayer ministry, and let me tell you, none of that's going to keep you here. If you don't get friends in the church, the enemy will take you away by just bringing a little darkness in your life. And so in this message, I'm shooting my best bullets about Christian community, and I hope that some of them pierce your heart, because you've got to have these life-changing friendships. You need to find your people, and Jesus shows us what that can look like. Look, I have divided this message under two truths, and so here's the first one. Jesus forms us through unlikely friendships. Everybody say unlikely. Unlikely is the one you didn't see coming, and you wouldn't choose yourself, and that's what we learn by reading just these simple verses where Jesus calls 12 disciples, and then the gospel writers just list their names for you. And you might think, well, those are throwaway verses. They're just kind of background details. They are not. This is filled with biblical truth, and I hope to unpack it for you. Mark 3.14 says, Then he appointed 12, and then Mark gives us the names. Let me run through those. Simon, whom Jesus renamed Peter. We know him. James, John, Andrew, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, another James, the son of Alphaeus, some guy named Thaddeus, Simon, another Simon, the Canaanite, and the one everybody remembers, Judas Iscariot. That is not a random list of names. We hear those names differently than the first readers did who first read Mark's gospel, and we're too tempted to think about Sunday morning stained glass window church because we now know these people as St. Peter and St. John and St. Thomas, but I want you to come on a journey with me, and let's strip away 2,000 years of church history and legend, and let's look at these men the way Jesus found them. Can I tell you? They were just kind of unimpressive, ordinary people. They were regular dudes. There was not one rabbi in that group, not one priest, not one scribe, not one member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling religious political council. At least four of them were fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and I've got to believe they had rival fishing businesses. I think there were probably days that James and John went out going, I hope Peter and Andrew don't catch any fish today. I want to sell them at the market. They were blue-collar workers. These were men with rough hands. These were men who knew nets and boats better than they knew books. And then there was Matthew. Depending on which gospel you're reading, his name may come up as Levi. Either way, Matthew was a tax collector. That means that he worked for the government. He worked for Rome among his Jewish people, and to his own people, Matthew was virtually a traitor, not invited to anybody's dinner parties. After Matthew gets in the group, Jesus chose a guy named Simon. Luke calls him Simon the Zealot. He was a political activist against the government. His nickname suggests a very different attitude toward the Romans than Matthew's everyday work. You see, Matthew worked for Rome. Simon belonged to the movement that hated Rome. And Jesus says, you two guys, you're going to be in the same small group. Can you imagine that first political discussion at the first meal with Jesus and the rest of the guys? Matthew goes, hey, everybody, I've got to tell you, I think the tax system is being misunderstood. And then Simon the Zealot picks up the bread knife, right? And he says, what did you just say to me? And then Jesus comes over and he plays referee and he goes, hey, guys, hey, guys, blessed are the peacemakers, right? See, I just used Bible and backed all that up. And then there was Thomas. We know him as Doubting Thomas. Thomas asked difficult questions at the most awkward moments. One time he asked Jesus, when Jesus says, I'm going to go away, he goes, well, we don't know where you're going. We don't know the way. Do you remember that question? And it's like, hey, Jesus, I'm just going to let you know verbally that I really don't understand anything you've been teaching me. And then Jesus answered with that verse we all know, I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me. We got that verse because of a question Thomas asked. Then there was Philip, and Philip tended to see the problem before any of the possibilities. He was a bean counter. He wore a pocket protector in the ancient world. I know that he did. And he was a spreadsheet guy. And Jesus one day looks at thousands of hungry people and turns to the 12 and says, go feed all of them. And Philip says, hey, Master, have you seen the numbers on that? And then there were James and John. And James and John liked to win. And they liked to come in first. And they didn't believe in participation trophies. They were ambitious and they were competitive. And one day they came to Jesus and they said, and I quote, I'm not making this up, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. They go up to Jesus and they say, would you sign us a blank check from heaven? And Jesus goes, well, here's a teaching moment. [00:48:00 - 00:56:00] By the way, would you, that's kind of like when somebody says to you, hey, can I tell you something and you promise not to be mad? Look, always say, no, I don't promise, right? Jesus, will you give us anything we ask you? That's not a very promising way to ask a question of Jesus in front of your small group. And Jesus goes, okay, guys, what do you want me to do for you? And they say, grant us that we may sit one on your right hand and the other on the left in your glory. I mean, let me tell you what they're asking of Jesus in front of the other 10. They say, look, when all this is over and you're the victor, we want to be enshrined in the hall of fame with you. We want to be your deputies and we're okay if the other guys just remain patrolmen. Jesus, would that be okay with you? I'm not making this up. This is in your Bible. And I want to show you a funny verse in that same passage, Mark 10, 41. And when the 10 heard it, so they asked Jesus in front of everybody else, they began to be greatly displeased with James and John. I'll take understatements for a thousand, Alex, right? Greatly displeased. In the Greek, it's totally ticked off. There's your small group meeting. Two political rivals, a doubter, a numbers guy, two ladder climbing brothers, four fishermen, three guys we know virtually nothing about. I imagine that they are the wallflowers in the small group, you know, the people who come and never say anything. The ones that when the group's going around in a circle praying, they go pass, pass, right? We don't know anything about them. They're just the quiet ones. They're in every group. And Judas Iscariot. There's always an imposter. When you look at Jesus' first small group, aren't you thinking now that your small group is looking better all the time? Listen to me. Jesus put them together on purpose because Jesus forms us through unlikely friendships. Why is that? Because the goal of Christian friendship is not compatibility. The goal of Christian friendship is Christ-likeness. Well, pastor, is there anything wrong with having friends who share your interests? What's the answer to that question? No, of course not. You know, some of you hunt together. Here's how I know. You always talk about your kills and never bring me any backstrap. I don't know why that is. It just happens. Some of you play golf together, and if you get a birdie or God help you if you hit a hole in one, you're getting ready to tell me, right? Some of you tailgate at ballgames together and commiserate when your team loses or celebrates when your team wins. Some of you have kids the same age, and they're kind of cross-pollinating in all these extracurricular activities, and you're in homeschooling groups. And I want to tell you and affirm to you, all of that is good. It is the common grace of God, and it is your duty in life to thank him for it and to enjoy those things. We enjoy the Lord's goodness when we enjoy those moments. But if everybody close to you thinks exactly like you, if everybody close to you talks exactly like you, if everybody close to you votes exactly like you, if everybody around you comes from the same background, if they see everything the way you see it, you have an echo chamber. You don't have a community. The Lord Jesus did not gather the twelve around common interests. He gathered them around himself. You see, the best thing you can have in common with anybody on earth is your relationship with Jesus Christ. Being in Christ makes you more of a brother to the person sitting next to you than if you have a brother or sister by blood who doesn't know Jesus. Does that make sense? That they might be with him around himself. What held the twelve together was not that they were alike. It was because they had the same Lord. And Jesus used their differences. He capitalized on them. James and John exposed the jealousy of the other ten. The other ten exposed the selfish ambition of James and John. Thomas asked questions somebody else may have been afraid to ask. Philip's practical thinking created opportunities for Jesus to stretch Philip's faith. Because when Philip says, I don't think we have enough to feed all these people, Jesus turns to Philip and basically says, watch this. Watch how faith sometimes supersedes all the math. And that's how he stretches your faith. Peter's mouth. Y'all know about Peter's mouth? Peter spoke without thinking all throughout the Gospels. Everybody's small group has one of these. Peter's mouth regularly gave Jesus something to teach everyone about. You ever been in a small group and the same person dominates the talking every week? Every small group has an apostle Peter. Listen, God will often use others to show you things about yourself you would never discover alone. What does that mean, pastor? Well, you think you're patient until people happen to you. You think you're forgiving until someone in the church offends you and hurts you. You can think you're humble until somebody else gets recognized publicly and you don't. You can think you're a servant until no one thanks you for all your service. Here's another one of those atomic bomb proverbs, Proverbs 27, 17. As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. So how in the world does iron sharpen iron? The answer is through contact. Can't sharpen somebody else from far away. Iron sharpens iron through friction, disagreement, rubbing the wrong way. Iron sharpens iron through pressure and sometimes sparks. My son Griffin bought me a knife sharpener for my birthday. We have these kitchen knives, they're all dull. I'm an idiot, don't know how to do anything. And Griff's like, I'm going to fix that dad. Look, the new way that you get gifts sometimes is that your kids will just order you something on Amazon and have it shipped to you. So he sends me this knife sharpener and it's cool. It's got two pieces. It's got this little magnet on either side. It'll hold the knife either at 20 degrees or 15 degrees. And then it has this roller and on one end of the roller is this diamond rough thing and you stick the thing of the magnet and you just roll back and forth. And then it's got the other side and it busts it. So I just spent, I was watching a football game just sharpening these knives. [00:56:00 - 01:04:00] A few minutes later, I looked up and there was just dust and soot all over my hands and the table. Because the iron was sharpening the iron and stuff was coming off. And see, if you have life-giving friends, Jesus makes them grind up against you in life and the stuff that's not like Jesus just comes off. And you get sharper and more useful. Does that make sense? Some of us want life-changing friends without any friction. That's not friendship, that's a fan club. What if the people God uses to form you are not always those you would naturally choose? That's why I had you say the word unlikely earlier. You see, the people God is going to use to help you be more like Jesus are likely in this room or they were in this room an hour ago. Maybe they're older than you and you're like, man, they just don't even talk the same way they talk. Maybe they're younger and you're like, they don't know anything, but they really do. Maybe they come from a different background than you. Maybe you had a broken home, they had a godly home. Maybe they have strengths you don't have. Maybe they're extroverted and you're introverted or whatever. Maybe they ask questions you'd never ask. Maybe they see something in you that you'd miss. Maybe they get on your nerves every now and then. See, I feel like God uses that more than anything. Because God's kind of going after the pride and the unforgiveness and the haughtiness in our own eyes. And that whole getting on your nerves, that last one may be the most valuable spiritual relationship in your life. Those extra grace required people, the EGRs, are often the ones that make you more like Jesus and fill you more with the love of God you never would have had. The Holy Spirit works through these relationships uniquely. Let me tell you something. We need rows. You're sitting in them right now. You need to be in a big room. You need to have your face to the front. You need to see heads around you turning. You need to be in a posture of learning. We need strong Bible teaching. We need passionate corporate worship that challenges you to engage. We need to show up in rows. And friends, that's not enough. We also need to be in circles. Face to face. Life to life. People close enough to know us and sharpen us. Jesus forms us through unlikely friendships. That's why when we have small group ministry here, we don't go, hey look, get a group of your friends and come tell us what group that is. Because that's not how Jesus did it. We want to put you in a group with some people that you don't know. That can show you a different way to love God. The people you walk with will help shape the person you become, so find your people. Well, that's idea number one. But finding your people involves more than being willing to walk with others who are different from you. I just spent a few minutes talking about that. But there's more. It means being intentional about relationships you build. Doing this stuff on purpose. And the New Testament seems to give us a very helpful picture of what those relationships can look like. So here's truth number two. Truth number one was Jesus forms us through unlikely friendships. Truth number two, Jesus grows us through intentional friendships. Everybody say intentional. Intentional means on purpose. Look, nobody grows in the Lord randomly. Nobody drifts and floats into godliness and holiness. If that happens in your life, you did it on purpose. You made a choice and you made some changes. There's another pattern in the New Testament that I want you to see. And I believe every Christian, without exception, needs three kinds of life-changing friendships. You need a Paul. You need a Timothy. And you need a Barnabas. You need somebody ahead of you in the Christian race. You need a Paul. You need somebody behind you that you can bring with you. You need a Timothy. And you need somebody beside you that's going to help pick you up when you fall. You need a Barnabas. So the rest of my message is going to be unpacking those three guys. Number one, you need a Paul to mentor you. And this verse that he wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1.11, if you didn't know it was written by an apostle, if you didn't know it had the stamp of heaven's approval on it already, if it was just a sentence in a newspaper, you would go, well, that's arrogant. That's kind of rude. That guy thinks a lot of himself. Here's what he wrote to the Corinthians. Imitate me just as I also imitate Christ. Let me tell you what else that means. The apostle Paul says, if you want to see what a Christian is, look at me. The apostle Paul says, if you want to know how to walk with God, just do what I do. I am exhibit A. Follow me as I follow Christ. That's a bold statement. Can we agree on that? Some might call it arrogant. Some may say at least it's audacious. Paul says, watch me follow Jesus. Watch how I pray. Watch me suffer. See how I handle conflict. Watch me resolve conflict and handle opposition. If you want to know what it means to serve others, watch me do it. See how I follow Christ. And then Paul says to his Timothy, Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3.10, he says to him, you've carefully followed my doctrine. But that doesn't end the verse. Then he lists something else he's carefully followed. My manner of life, my purpose, faith, long-suffering, love, perseverance. Did you catch that? Timothy didn't only know what Paul taught. You can hear that in lectures and in gatherings. Paul says, Timothy, you know my way of life. How is that even possible? Timothy, you know my purpose and my faith and my patience and my love. You know my perseverance. How do you know somebody's perseverance unless you've been with them for a while? How did Timothy know these things? He walked closely with Paul. He closed the distance. By the way, you can learn information from a distance. Isn't that true? You can listen to a preacher online. Hey, in the first service, I was standing in that global offering line. There was a guy. I had never seen him before. Cool beard, older fellow. And I go talk to him and there's an accent. And he says, I'm Luis from Brazil. And he said, we just moved here. My wife found the church. We've been listening to your sermons online. He says that. And we came from Oklahoma City and we're looking for a church like the one we were been in. We think we found it. And I'll be working maybe on Sundays, but my wife's from Russia. How cool is that? She said she was watching online and Oleg Fedorenko, our Russian elder, was doing the prayer. And she says, she turns to her husband and goes, my people. They found their people moving here. You can do it at a distance. He said, I had to come and see for myself. [01:04:00 - 01:12:00] Met him. Incredible. You can read a book, you can listen to a podcast, you can take a course, and I gotta tell you, I thank God for all those things. I do all those things. But listen to me, you can't really know how someone lives by watching them on a screen or from a distance. You need to see their life up close and personal. You need a Paul. How do they handle disappointment? How do they make decisions? How do they pray when they're afraid? How do they admit when they're wrong? How do they walk with Jesus when life hurts? Who can tell them no when they stop? You need a Paul to mentor you. Somebody farther down the road. Not somebody perfect, somebody faithful. Somebody who's walked with Jesus you respect. Now look, I'm a Paul hog in my life. I got five or six of them. I'm adding to them all the time. I expect to keep growing until I die. I always want somebody in my life that I'm up close and personal with who's further down the road and can tell me here's what to expect. Stop doing that, you dummy. I don't care what they say. I need them. I trust them. I submit. Does that make sense? Look, one of my Pauls, I'm 52. One of my Pauls is 75. He has a Paul who's 92. When you get to be 92, you kind of run out of options. If they're older than you, they're dead, right? If I get to be 92, I hope I have a Timothy. You guys follow what I'm saying? In other words, I'm not saying you need to get a mentor so that someday you can become like us who don't need them. I don't know anybody who doesn't need a Paul for the rest of their lives. I expect to keep growing, keep learning, keep humbling myself, Lord willing, or have them humble me. If you get one, you can ask them, hey, how'd you get through this? I'm going through it now. When your kids grow up and leave the house, how do you handle that? Here's what's going on in my life. If you were me, what would you do? You've been watching my life. You've been up close and personal. What do you see that I'm missing? What's my blind spot? Will you pray with me about that? Will you tell my wife so I don't have to? Who is your Paul? By the way, don't sit around waiting for God to send a 70-year-old spiritual giant to one day randomly knock on your door and announce, the Lord hath sent me to thee to mentor thee. Just find somebody who's walked with Jesus you respect and draw near. Ask questions, listen, imitate, but don't you dare stop there. You need a Paul to mentor you, and you need a Timothy to pour into. Timothy was Paul's protege. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, verse 2, count the generations of disciple-makers in this verse. And the things that you've heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Here are the generations in that verse. Paul to Timothy. Timothy to faithful people. Faithful people to others also. Four generations of discipleship down the line in that one verse. Paul says, Timothy, what I gave you, you give it away to somebody else. That's discipleship. Now we've been trying to come up with definitions for evangelism and discipleship that are clear and easy to remember and just drill into you as a member of our church so that you'll know what they are and know whether or not you're doing it. Here's our definition. Randy and his team worked so hard on this. I love it. It's awesome for discipleship. Discipleship is learning to think, live, and love like Jesus while helping others do the same. Did you see two parts of that definition? Part one is learning to think, live, and love like Jesus. It's going to take you the rest of your life. Part two is helping others do the same. You can start that right now. Because you don't wait until you've mastered it to start doing it. No one ever gets there. Don't miss the last part. Helping others do the same. Some people have been Christians and been learning for 30 years and they still don't think they know enough to help anybody. Friends, that's preposterous. Listen to me very carefully. You don't have to know everything about following Jesus to help somebody take their next step with Him. But you may object. Pastor, I'm not a Bible scholar. I have an answer for that. Are you ready? Everybody look at me. Neither were the 12. You know those guys Jesus picked and poured His life into them? No Bible scholars. And yet, let me show you what the public thought about them. Acts 4.13 says the religious leaders perceived that the 12 were uneducated and untrained men. They looked at them and they said, nothing special. Not very smart. No letters behind their names. Not much training. And they were right. But then that evaluation is followed up with this. But they realized they had been with Jesus. That's all you need. In fact, all your learning and all your intellect won't help you in the day of wrath. It doesn't help you here if you are never with Christ. Have you been with Jesus? Has He ever taught you anything? Has He ever brought you anything? Has He ever answered a prayer? Has He ever come to you in power? Has He ever broken a stronghold? Has He ever forgiven you? Has He ever given you a verse that held you together? If your answer to any of those questions is yes, then you have something to give. You have something to give a Timothy. So who is your Timothy? Who are you encouraging? Who are you challenging? Who are you teaching? Who are you helping take the next step? Who can say this? I know Jesus Christ better today because that person sitting in your seat invested in me. And a quick word to parents. Parents, your children may be your first Timothys. You need to be poured into them. But listen, they don't need to be your last Timothys. They're not your only responsibility in making disciples. Older believers in the church, well, who's that? Do I need to name names? If you feel older, if you're older than me, I think I'm in the old club. Older believers, there are young adults in this church who need to learn how to adult the way you do it in Christ. Younger adults, Gen Z, 1997 to 2012. A lot of y'all have been coming to my house on Thursday night, so I love you. Can't wait. Thursday night, one of the best nights in the whole world. Let me talk to you younger adults. There are teenagers watching you, and for some reason, they still think you're cool. You got maybe two or three more years [01:12:00 - 01:20:00] You need to take advantage of that. And I'm serious. Teenagers, there are children in the north end of this building that think you're awesome. Please don't ruin that. No, seriously. Go and leverage the season that you're in to the people that you have influence in our church. You can connect with them and communicate with them better than I can in so many ways. Students, go do it. Use it while it lasts. Is any of that true? Someone is behind you on the road. Turn around and help them. Find you a Timothy to pour into. And last but not least, maybe most important, you need a Barnabas to encourage you. Don, how am I doing? Am I lifting you up? You said you needed a boost. All right. Here's the good stuff. Acts 4 introduces a man, it depends on your English translation, either Joseph or Joseph. But the apostles gave him another name. Acts 4.36. And Joseph, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles. What does Barnabas mean? It means son of encouragement. You need to make it a goal in your life that you walk so humbly and so circumspectly before God that you have such a deep impact in your local church that we all just rename you and nickname you. That's what happened to Joseph who became Barnabas. He encouraged people so consistently, the apostles renamed him and they said, here comes encouragement. Wouldn't that be a great reputation? It beats the heck out of, here comes drama. Here comes guy that gets too much food at the beginning of the potluck line. We had to stop doing those because of that. It's better than, here comes obnoxious. Here comes complaint. Look, there's encouragement. And Barnabas lived up to his name. When Saul of Tarsus became a Christian, nobody trusted him. And for good reason, because this man had been destroying the church and arresting Christians. And we read in Acts 9.26, when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and did not believe that he was a disciple. Got that? Makes sense? Don't stop at verse 26 though. Verse 27 is the encouraging part. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. The man who was almost the walking plague, Barnabas grabs him by the arm and says, come on, I'll vouch for you. Use my credibility. I'll show them that you've met Jesus. It's a powerful image. Barnabas took him. Everybody else backed away from Saul. Barnabas stepped toward him. Everybody else looked at Saul's past. Barnabas saw what the grace of God might make of his future. That was one time. Later on, Barnabas is on a missionary trip with the apostle Paul. They got a young guy named John Mark. John Mark gets homesick or something happens. He fails. Paul didn't want to take him on the next leg of the missionary journey. And we read in Acts 15.39, and so Barnabas took Mark, sailed to Cyprus. There it is again. Barnabas took him. Barnabas had a habit. He took people. He took Saul. He took Mark. And he got beside those who needed somebody in their corner. That's a son of encouragement. You've got to have one of these. You need a Barnabas. Not necessarily a mentor. You've got that covered in your Paul. You need a Barnabas. Not necessarily someone you're mentoring. You've got that covered in your Timothy. You need a life-giving friend. I laugh with my life-giving friends. I don't tell the jokes. I'm a preacher, right? But I laugh at the ones they tell. I have life-giving friends where I go, I need to go spend some time with them just so I don't have to be somebody's chaplain just for five minutes. Not that that's wearing on me all the time, but sometimes. Like I'm a real human. I need these life-giving friends. I am surrounding myself with Barnabai. Is that the plural for Barnabas? You've got to get them. You laugh with them. They know when you're tired. They can say to you, come on, you're going to make it through this. They can say to you, stop and don't do that. It doesn't bother you. Somebody who reminds you of what God has done in your life. Somebody who believes in the grace of God and what He's doing in you now. Somebody who, and here's my favorite part, recharges your emotional batteries instead of draining them every time their name appears on your phone. You know, there are some people that when their name pops up on your screen, your battery drops 10% just automatically. Is that just me? No? You need somebody that gives you life. I was getting ready a couple of years ago to go to Africa to go see our ministry over there that we support. Africa is a long way away. It's two legs of flying once you get to Chicago. It's two legs of eight and a half hours and eight hours. And you don't know which way is up and then you land and you're in Africa. And it's a developing nation and it's difficult. And I knew that I was going to have to be preaching and teaching a lot and then we're going to have to go and we're walking around in the desert. It was going to be draining. And I knew that when the ministry day was over, it mattered who I went back to the hotel with. And so Pastor Kyle, our missions pastor, obviously was going to go on that trip. He's been the best buddy of mine for 20 years. Couldn't love him anymore. My brother Zach is my brother. He went and he's an extraordinary missionary. Knew I could count on him. And I was like, I need somebody else. I got to have a third guy. We got to have four. And I thought about Jason Brooker. And this story was better in the first service because he wasn't in it. But he's sitting over there now. I thought about Jason Brooker. And what you don't know about me and Jason is we're born two weeks apart. Known each other since either five-year-old kindergarten or first grade. We debate about that. The first school bus we ever rode, we rode together, first grade. Mr. Wills, bus 17. We just known each other forever. Been in every class. And I was like, man, you know, every time I'm around Brooker, I feel better. Every time I'm around him, he charges my back. He teaches me things. Makes me laugh. And I knew he was retired, so if I asked him to go on a mission trip, he couldn't say no. Hey, you want to go to Africa? He's like, yeah, I'm going to go to Africa with you. And that's a big commitment. He had to leave Renee and go somewhere. We had to get six months rounds of shots and inoculations. Just one month at the shot nurse every month. It was hard. Worth it, though, but hard. We get there, and we're traveling back from a day in the desert, and it's like, I don't know how many of us were packed in this vehicle. I'm way off my notes. You guys want to hear this story or not? In this vehicle, I don't know how many Americans, Africans, just how many you can put in things that will get you there. And it was hot. Zach's in the back. I'm in the second row. I can't get to him. And Zach's having his heat stroke over there. And we go, hey, we need to stop. We need to stop. We got a guy from the front. People up in the front who didn't see him go, oh, he'll be fine. [01:20:00 - 01:28:00] Brooker goes, no, he won't be fine. And he gets these water bottles and he's pouring water bottles on Zach and he's got his medicine and we get everything stopped. Brooker saves my brother's life. I'm kind of grateful for that. I think Zach's really grateful for that because he's sitting back there alive. Life-giving friend charges your batteries, doesn't take from you. Like you want to be with them. I'm going to tell you something. You can't have 20 life-giving friends. You don't have enough time. You don't have enough margin in your life. And sometimes you'll have life-giving friends and they're seasonal. They come for a season and God gives you a great season and they move on. First of all, you need to be thankful to God that he gave them to you, the Barnabases. And then you need to value this and go, I always need somebody to come alongside me and be of help to me. You need a Barnabas to encourage you. Proverbs 17, 17, a friend loves at all times. That's a Barnabas friend. Brothers made for adversity. There are people God gives you who make the road easier simply because they walk part of it with you. So who's your Barnabas? Who encourages you? Who reminds you of grace? Who can make you laugh when life's been difficult? Who's your Paul? Who's helping you be more like Jesus? Who's your Timothy? Who are you helping become more like Jesus yourself? And do you have a small group of unlikely friendships in our church? Are you in our small group ministry? You need to sign up on that card today. You got to have all these. It's the power of finding your people. Let's stand and pray together. Prayer ministry team, if you'll come forward so we can be ready to pray for people after the service. Anybody can come for prayer for anything. Was any of that helpful to you? Look, if it was, be ready. And I deputize all of you to go ask the believers in this room that you know, did you find your Paul yet? Who's your Timothy? Who's your Barnabas? And if they have three blanks, go next time I ask you, you need to have one of the blanks filled in. Let's pray together.