In Philippians 2:19-30, the message centers on timothy and epaphroditus | faithful service. Explore Philippians 2:19–30 through Timothy and Epaphroditus, discovering faithful service, genuine care, sacrifice, and Christlike character. Rather than treating the passage as abstract theology, the sermon traces what these truths reveal about God, the gospel, and the way followers of Jesus are called to live.
The message presses toward an active response to the gospel. Faith is presented as something that reshapes priorities, decisions, character, and obedience, not simply something we affirm intellectually. Listeners are challenged to examine whether their lives are increasingly aligned with what they say they believe and to respond to God's grace with courage, humility, and faithful action.
Along the way, the message engages themes including Philippians 2:19-30, timothy and epaphroditus | faithful service, philippians 2, 1930 timothy epaphroditus. These ideas help place the primary passage within the larger story of Scripture and show how its theology speaks to real spiritual formation. At its heart, the sermon helps answer questions such as: What does Philippians 2:19-30 teach about timothy and epaphroditus It also considers faithful service?
For someone studying this passage, exploring the Christian faith, or looking for practical biblical teaching, this sermon offers a clear path from the text to everyday discipleship. The invitation is to hear what Scripture says, receive it with humility, and take the next faithful step in following Jesus.
What does Philippians 2:19-30 teach about timothy and epaphroditus | faithful service? | How should timothy and epaphroditus | faithful service shape the way Christians live? | How can believers apply Philippians 2:19-30 in everyday life?
Philippians 2:19-30, timothy and epaphroditus | faithful service, philippians 2, 1930 timothy epaphroditus, discovering faithful service, genuine care, christlike character, epaphroditus | faithful service
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We are in the middle of Philippians going exposiitoily verse by verse. And it's kind of funny because when you read scripture, there are moments we we we used to do this thing when I was going through like my Bible school classes and they would take the Bible, they would open it up and then you put your finger on there and then you had to write an entire message on that one scripture, right? And and there's there's a lot of like weird verses in the Bible that you really can't do that for. And we would learn about preaching in context or proof text. Do you all know what proof texting is? Reading in context is, okay, I'm going to read this verse, but I'm going to read everything around it to understand who they're talking to, what's going on in this. But proof texting is when you take one verse and you have no context around it. You just go off of the word and go, "This is what I think the scripture means, or this is what, you know, I I I feel in this moment it might mean." And we can take one scripture verse. It's like the verse, we're going to get to it here in a couple weeks. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Right? And you can take that verse and go, well, I'm just going to go skydiving with no parachute because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Right? And we can we can do some really wild things and but so reading verses in context is so important. But then you also have a lot of verses where it's like, does this even have any meaning for us as a body? And so when we get into Philippians 2, we're we're jumping down to verse 19. There's a lot of like little things in here that we could easily go, this just sounds like the PS at the end of the letter that Paul is writing to the church, the Philippian church. And so when we read it, I want you to have your your Holy Spirit antennas up and be open to what God wants to show us. Um because this is not just some passing verse as we jump to Philippians 3 next week. Okay, I had to give that caveat before we dive into this because my focus today is that God's people need God's people. Everybody say that with me. God's people >> need God's people. >> Don't do life alone. Did you know that it is not God's will or plan or designed for you to live by yourself and for you to live alone without people or to live this Christian life as a lone wolf or loner? If you go back and even read the creation story that there were six days, six stages of creation and then God, you know, said this is good, this is good. All these things that he's creating is good. And then when he gets to man, he says this is very good. Right? But then in verses right after that, God begins to say something is not good. And the first thing that he says that is not good is that man is alone. This is not good. Man should not be alone. So when he creates all these things, he goes, "No, this is I he needs to have somebody with him." And and again, let me just say this. That doesn't mean that you have to be married today. That doesn't mean that you have to have a a spouse or or your own friend's TV show Friend group. It means that the very wiring of your being is meant to be with others. Like I I love watching uh there's this TV show called Alone. Have you guys se anyone seen that? Raise your hand if you've seen the show Alone. Nobody. All right. This is just I'm alone in this. All right, great. I'll explain the synopsis of it very very quickly. Basically, they have all these contestants and they go out into the wilderness in Alaska by themselves and they have to survive alone in the wilderness as winter is coming. And so, it's getting colder and colder every single day. So, they're having to go and catch fish. Some of them, like one guy shot a moose one season and all these different things. Like, some really cool stuff happens. They'd have to build a shelter, purify their water. Like, every single day is fullblown survival, right? And and and the the funny thing with this is they truly are alone because they have to film themselves for the TV show. So before they do anything, they have to set up a tripod, set up the camera, and then do what they're doing. So then the editors can have all this footage. And it's it's really bizarre because as the show gets longer and longer into it, and 10 days turns to 20 and 30 days in the wilderness, the majority of the contestants end up leaving the show or tapping out. They get on the satphone and said, "I'm tapping out. I'm done. The majority of them leave because of lack of social interaction. Some guys leave because they hurt themselves or they get sick or whatever. They do med checks and all the things, but a lot of these guys will leave because there's so many conversations I want to have that I can't have. In fact, social isolation can cause major health and mental issues. And I've got all these different things. I did some research this week and you can you can double check me and all all whatever. But the first thing research shows extended isolation actually changes our perception of life and our brain has less external feedback. We begin interpreting situations through our own internal narrative which isn't always accurate because again it's us talking to ourselves or us just going on social media into groups where we hear the things that we want to hear. And people actually may begin to assume that others are judging them that actually aren't. They'll become hyper sensitive to rejection or feeling rejected by people who aren't even rejecting them. They'll overanalyze conversations. They'll lose confidence in how they're perceived by others. Again, it's almost like having an echo chamber with your own thoughts. It's like the Grinch saying, "Hello," and it coming back, "How are you?" Yeah, we think it and then it bounces back to us louder than before. So it must be true. The second thing is emotional regulation becomes harder. Our emotions again they become amplified. Having other real people around us, not online, can actually help give us feedback that we may not want to hear, but it's feedback that we need. And it helps us to be less self-focused. And I've said this many times here before. The number one way to fight depression is to serve others constantly and make others more important than ourselves. The best way to stay depressed, think about yourself all the time. Again, we we learned a couple weeks ago in Philippians 2 34, count others more significant than yourself. The third thing is motivation often declines when you're socially isolated. Humans naturally perform better when they're connected to others. And so without meaningful relationships, pe people often experience less initiative, lower energy, reduced purpose, increased procrastination. It's very interesting. This is this one's kind of fun. The brain actually becomes more vigilant in socially isolated scenarios. So again, if you're if you're on an episode of Alone and you're living in Alaska, this would be helpful to you. there's a bear. You know, you you you you have this ability and and hypervigilance, but researchers have found that loneliness actually it increases threat detection. And when people feel disconnected, the brain begins scanning constantly for danger. And somebody who was never a threat to you may be a threat. So this can soon can lead to assuming negative motives of others. we become more defensive and we withdraw even further. It's it's actually ironic how loneliness often causes behaviors that create even more loneliness. And again, let me just be clear. Jesus and many biblical prophets often sought out isolation and solitude for prayer. But they weren't just going off into the desert and staying there. They always circled back and connected again with people. They would go and seek that solitude. Like I've gone and done this. I've gone and stayed at at monasteries for a few days at a time where I've gone and had a few days where I turn my phone off and I just I'm just praying and it's a beautiful thing to disconnect, but I'm always coming back full of the spirit to connect with others. Right? The last thing is extended loneliness can make us increasingly self-focused. Not because we're selfish people, but because there are fewer interruptions to our own perspective. Without other people, no one needs us immediately, and no one challenges our assumptions. No one stretches our patience. And no one reminds us that life isn't just about us. Community forces us to grow. And CS Lewis actually observed this. This is kind of like a synopsis of of of a part in his book, The Four Loves, which is a great book. You should read it. It says that different friends actually bring out different parts of who we are. And so some of you may empathize with this. When you lose one friend in your life or you lose a relationship, there's certain parts of your personality that go dormant. When you hang out with one friend, you may be full of life and love and all these different things. And then when they're gone, you go swing back to where you were before. And this is why it's so difficult when we lose friends or even family members in our life. We can feel like a part of us is lost, a part of us is gone. And so it's so important that we find people, godly people to draw these things out of us, that we wouldn't do life alone. So I want to encourage you today that you need godly people in your life. Not an echo chamber online, but people that draw out of you who God meant for you to be. People who challenge you. People who test your patience. people who have different ideas than you may have when it comes to even your walk with the Lord. Because again, we can get into this place where we think, I've arrived and I know everything or this is how I feel things should be. And then anybody who thinks differently than me is now a threat. And we're we're going to kind of see some of this here today. So just remember, we remember that Paul wrote Philippians full of prayers, encouragement, full of joy and passion from a very desperate location. He was chained to a wall in a Roman prison. And yet Paul was joyfully telling Philippi how proud he was of this wonderful church. And today we're going to read, he encourages Christians to embrace other believers in their lives. And it's a beautiful and great reminder for all of us because godly people need godly people. So I want you to write this down. I've got just two points here today. First one is this. God will send people into your life. I didn't say good people. I didn't say godly people. But God will send people into your life. All of us could evaluate the people in our lives and go, I don't know if God put this person in my life, right? Or maybe I'm actually just holding on to them and God's trying to pull them out of my life. God will send people into your pathway to test you, challenge you, grow you, encourage you. But with that, God always wants good for you. God isn't sitting in heaven mad at you trying to make your life miserable. And that might mess with your theology today, but it's true. Like I I'm going to show you this. This is If you don't laugh at this, that's totally fine. I thought this was hilarious. I found this meme online where God is up in heaven and all of the angels are watching this guy on the TV and they're celebrating. They're like, "Oh, he finally broke up with that girl. Like she was ruining his life." You know, it's this whole thing. And then God's just sitting there stroking his beard and he's like, "I'm going to send him another toxic girl." And all the ANGELS ARE LIKE, "NO." YOU KNOW, AND ANYWAYS, God's sending another terrible person to ruin your life for character development. >> Y'all love that. >> We can we can think about people in that way sometimes where it's like, "This person's really difficult. God must have put them here to make me better, right?" Has anyone thought that way? Or maybe it's just me. If it's your spouse, put your hand down. Okay. As funny as it is, God is not trying to hurt you and ruin your life with the people that cross your path or the people that are in your life. Now, God always wants good for you. Now, let me just be very clear. Our earthly definition of good is not always God's definition. Because I'll be honest, I've had really bad bosses in my life. I've had really bad clients that I've had to work for. And when I end up working with them, for them, around them, with Jesus at the center of my life and choose to honor them, they ended up making me better. But when I've gone through it hating this person, it just creates cynicism and bitterness and even more pain within me. And it isolates me more. And now everyone's a threat to me. The people God sends into your life are going to be people that are going to be good for you. And again, that doesn't mean that they're good people. The people God's God brings into your life are meant to make you shine brighter for God. whether to lift you up so you shine bright or to bring in bring you into a place that forces you to get closer to God because they're causing pain and hurt. So, here we go. We're we're we're getting into the word of God now. We're done with with the pastor's opinions. All right? And lots of research. Philippians 2:19. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by news of you. Again, remember Paul is in prison and he has Timothy. Timothy is a spiritual son to Paul who was adopted in the faith. Paul was was friends with Timothy's mom. They were co-labors together in the gospel. Paul discipled, mentored him as a son and Timothy actually became the pastor of the Ephesian church. So when you read Ephesians, he's the pastor of the church. You can read first and second Timothy to learn more about this relationship. And it says, "So that I may be cheered by good news about you guys." I don't know why I put that in there. Anyways, you guys. Paul is looking for any reason right now to have good news in his life because he's in prison. And then verse 20, it says, "For I have no one like him. I have no one like Timothy who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. Paul loves the church, but he's like, I can't come and see you. Clearly, I'm I'm I've got some stuff going on right now. He's in prison, but he desperately wants to see the church continue to grow. And so, he's like, you know what? I'm going to send this amazing man of God, this amazing follower of Christ to you. And and it's funny because I feel this way sometimes as a pastor when I bring in guest speakers. Have you guys liked did you guys like Jonathan Lorance when he came? If you were here, he was awesome. He brought he brought the heat. But I'm actually really really careful who I allow to speak in our church. And I even learned that from my dad when he was the pastor because I get calls every single week. I get emails, I get messages, people begging to come and preach here, mostly because this is Franklin and they think you're all loaded. So, they're coming here to get a big old offering, right? But news flash, like this, I know this, this church is full of people that give out of obedience, not flashy preachers. Amen. not people that are self-interested. We want people that again that are going to bring the fire, that are going to fan us into flame. And so, this is why we've been so focused on bringing the right people into our church to speak life into us. But here's what's really funny. Again, when you look at verse 21, I love how it says they. I don't know if you can see it. It says, "For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus." And I and I kind of laugh because I'm like, "Who is they? Who is Paul talking about in this moment? Again, this is where context is so important as he's referring to they because like I I I joke about like speakers calling me all the time, but it's like when someone says to you, people are saying that you have bad breath. Has anyone ever said that to you before? Now you're all going to try to smell my breath today. Yeah. But it's like people are saying this about you. People are saying that about you. And I just want to let you know people are are are concerned about you. And then I I ask what people name some names. Who are you talking about? And then they're like, well, you know, I I I don't want to. And then you finally realize it's not people. It's you. >> Who are these people? And so anyways, this is like a total side thing. I'm just laughing because when Paul says they all, it's like who are you referring to, Paul? But if you go back and you look at Philippians 1, when Paul was talking about all these all these preachers who were taking advantage of Paul while he was in prison, Paul's in prison and so all these new preachers come on the scene and start running around all these churches to start getting some offerings and start getting some money and start and start building up their own selves in kingdom. And so when Paul says this, they he's referring back to Philippians 1. all these guys that are in it for themselves. Timothy is not like that. Timothy is different. I put He's juxtaposing Timothy from all of these wolves in sheep's clothing. He's like, "Bro, Timothy is my guy. He's my big dog. He's the man. I trust him. I love him. He's amazing. He's unlike anyone else that I have in my care. He's not going to take from you or mislead you." Like I don't know about you, but I would love to be introduced this way. I would love for someone to be like, "Hey, this is Nick. He's really cool. He loves Jesus and he's the most solid dude that I know." Like, that's a great intro. Like, I would die for this guy. I trust this dude. That's a great introduction. And Paul's even bragging. He's bragging on the kind of leader that Timothy would be in the lives of the Philippians and the kind of Christian that he would be. He's a guy who will seek God for you, who will do well for you, and I trust him. He would be genuinely concerned for your welfare. Let me read this in verse 22. It says, "But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel. I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me. And I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. So again, it's a little confusing, but he's saying, I would love to send Timothy, but I'm not going to send him just yet. So just so so you understand what's happening here. Again, Timothy, he would be genuinely concerned for their welfare. And how many of you in this room right now would love to have someone in your life who cares like that about you? >> That genuinely is concerned like zero agenda >> that they love you. That they they want to every time they get around you, all they do is they lift you up. All they do is encourage you and they talk about Jesus in your life. Again, God's people need godly people who love God in their lives. Again, Timothyy's faithful. He's faithful to his word. He's a servant leader under Paul's leadership. A leader in how he followed Jesus. And these are the kind of like great qualities of people we want to have within our church, within our lives, within our families that we want God to send into our lives. The kind of people that I want in my life, people who are a blessing to me and not a curse. Because at the end of the day, like we have enough bad news in this world. And I don't really need another bad news friend. I need some good news people in my life. Anybody else need some good news people in your life? This is this is another fun story I'm going to tell. And if you don't get it, I don't care. I had so much fun writing this message this week. But I was watching the Super Mario Brothers movie. Anybody else seen it? Okay. All right. Hallelujah. You You've got kids or something? Yeah. And there's this moment where Luigi, he's the one with the green hat for those of you that don't know. He's like stuck in this like lava chamber and he's about to die. He's like in a cage and there's this little blue star. You got the blue star guy to go up on the screen. Y'all remember this little blue star? Like how cute is he? Isn't he so cute? Like he just looks so innocent and great and kind and he's in the cage next to Luigi in this moment. And uh he's all smiley and cute, but he's a nihilist. Do y'all know what a nihilist is? Nihilism is believing that life has no meaning. We have a lot of nihilistic people in this world. So, anytime that you see this little blue guy in the movie, he's saying wildly negative things with a smile on his face the whole time. And I just want to read a couple of the things that he says. He says, "Time, like hope, is an illusion." Yeah. You're [laughter] going to get depressed. I'm sorry. There is no escape. The only hope is the sweet relief of death. Y'all, this is a kids movie. There's no sunshine, only darkness. The first time I saw this movie, man, I was like, "How can this bright cute little star say these horrible, horrible things? NOTHING IS GOOD. JUST LIVE YOUR LIFE AND DIE." You know, that's what he's that's what he's saying. And I and I don't know about you, but I've been in the church long enough. I've been around people like this, >> inside the church and outside the church. And I think we've forgotten that we have the greatest news on the planet. We have the GOOD NEWS OF THE GOSPEL. CHURCH, we need some good news people in our lives, not people that are negative every single time you have a conversation with them. >> You ever get around somebody and you just know you're bracing for the negativity to begin to come out in the conversation? >> Like like like you had to work yourself up in your mind to go, I'm going to be spending time with so- and so today. Got to get the defenses up. I got to I need to read I need to listen to a bunch of worship music and read all the Psalms right now before I go hang out with this person. They love Jesus, but they make me feel like I shouldn't be following Jesus anymore. Church, we have the greatest news in the universe that Jesus lived, died, defeated death, and resurrected so that we can live free from sin. >> Amen. so that we can be transformed in our minds, in our hearts, that we can be born again in Christ >> and live with the spirit of God dwelling within us. Church, did you know that you were a temple and a dwelling place for the spirit of God? >> But again, we allow the influences of this world to change how we speak and how we perceive everything. that so social isolation that we can drift into brings us into that place where our perception is our own and no longer the Lord's. I pray for you today that we would all have the eyes of God. That we would see this world the way that he sees it. What we consume we become. And what we fixate on influences us. Scripture even tells us not to focus on just what is seen, but that our faith must be fixated on the unseen to shape our entire reality. We should desire to have people in our lives again who are humble, who are servants, who lead well for Christ and lead us to fixate on Jesus, not fixate on all these other things that may or may not be happening here in this world. So, first you need to believe God to send godly people into your lives. And secondly, you need to evaluate the friends and influences in your life. Period. Thank you. >> Yeah, that was great. Think about the people that are in your life. And if you're missing some godly, character-driven, Christ-c centered friends, you need to start asking the Lord for that. Maybe the third thing is pray for godly friends. Pray, "God, I need somebody in my life who loves you and who can love me and just be a godly friend and influence in my life." Like, we don't talk about this very often. There's lots of miracles that that Jesus, you know, performed and did and all these things, but let's just be honest. The greatest miracle that Jesus ever performed was he con convinced 12 people to be his friend. who has 12 close friends that are not only you're willing to die for, but they're willing to die for you. >> Jesus pursued again all of these friends, all these disciples. He pursued them all intentionally and he said, "Hey, come follow me. Hey, come hang out with me. Come live with me. Let's go raise the dead and feed thousands. How fun is that? >> Let's start a revolution. Sometimes to have a friend, you need to intentionally be a friend. Intentionally praying for godly friends and intentionally seeking out godly friends. So ask the Lord to send this kind of person into your life or people in your life and maybe pray, God, help me to recognize the people that are already in my life that maybe I've been suspicious of or in my own isolation, I've considered them a threat, but maybe God, you brought them into my life because they are meant to be a friend. And and let me just say all this like be a friend is is is great but don't be weird about it. I feel like I need to make this caveat because I have a lot of weird friends. Um Brandon's not here. He was here last week. He was the missionary going to Thailand. If he's he's not watching, it's all good. He became my friend in a very weird way. I'm just going to explain it. I'm I'm saying this because I don't want you to do this. Okay, so don't do this. But he was like, him and his wife are really into inagram. Y'all know what the the personality assessment, whatever. I was not I did not care. Which apparently makes me an Inagram 8 because I don't I don't care. Um and uh and they're they were both like, "Hey, like these are our these are our Inagram numbers and blah blah blah. We think that we would be really good friends with you. We think you're cool and or we're going to be worst enemies according to this book." And I'm like, "Y'all need to just throw that thing in the trash. Like, stop." I didn't care about any of this stuff. But he was like, "We're going to be best friends or worst enemies. It's your choice." That was lit. This was an actual conversation. Don't do that, church. Okay? Like, be my friend. Just Just calm down. It's okay. It was really weird. And it only worked because I'm really weird. Okay? So, yeah. Again, hear me today. God wants good for you. And God uses godly people to do good in your life. Don't settle for less than God's best. So again, I want you to start believing God for godly people. Evaluate who's currently in your life. Evaluate your friends. Evaluate your followers on social media. Evaluate who you're following. Like some of y'all don't realize this, but I I learned this a couple of years ago. When you go on your Instagram or your Tik Tok or or Facebook or whatever, the algorithm is set up in a way where you will see things that your friends are looking at. So, who you're following really matters. You'll see things that you're looking at, too. But when I start going through my Instagram feed and I start seeing smut or I start seeing inappropriate stuff, I'm like, I need to unfollow some people because I'm not looking at this stuff. So, one of my friends must be going off the the the railing here. Maybe I need to call somebody. Like, I I unfollowed 30 people this last week. It's so freeing. Like, I don't have to see any of your pictures anymore. That's great. Like, I love it. You should do it again. I know it's time to unfollow people when I start seeing things that I know are not godly in my life, >> in my feed. And again, another thing too, the news outlets that you follow, the shows that you watch, the music that you're listening to, we shouldn't let ungodly voices be louder than the voice of God. And so we really need to be wise in this and we need to evaluate the people in our lives because you could very easily if especially if you're already in an isolated place, you could just be like, I'm not going to have any friends because they're all bad influences on me. And unfortunately, that's just going to make things worse for you because we need God's people in our lives. So ask this. Do the people that are influencing my life have the sort of character and perspective that we see Paul and Timothy talking about? It's good for me. He's good for me. He loves Jesus more than he loves me. Do the leaders and friends and influences of my life seek my good or theirs? Do my friends have an agenda for my life that doesn't align with God's plan and agenda for my life? Do they serve the life and family of God that we're trying to build? Or do they just take from me? Do you have influences in person or digitally or celebrities or whatever that grow you in the life of Christ or do they pull you into a different direction? And just be honest. And again, I'm not beating you over the head with a Bible. This is just practical wisdom that we can walk in. And some people again, we will push back on statements like this because we'll say things like, well, you know, aren't we supposed to be part of the world because I'm supposed to be a light in the world? Yes, but you're supposed to be the one influencing, not being influenced. >> Right. >> Like, like we it's really fun when Christians try to compare themselves to Jesus. We'll say things like, "Well, Jesus drank Jesus drank wine." We we we we have scriptural evidence to some effect. Maybe yes, a little bit. It was a customary thing to do as as a Jew Jewish person. They would drink wine at different festivals and weddings and all these different things. There's not a verse in there that says Jesus got lit and had so much fun with wine. Okay? But many times we'll use scriptures or we'll use, you know, cultural things. We said, "Well, Jesus did this, so I can do this." And I'm not I'm not saying that all y'all are going to hell because you drink, okay? But what I am saying is if you're going to use one scripture or one cultural thing to then allow you to start potentially living in a lifestyle of sin and saying, "Jesus did this, so now I can do this." Well, let me give you a list of other things that Jesus also did. Jesus raised the dead. He fasted often. He prayed every day. He went to temple. He healed people. He spoke truth in love. He moved in power. He was fearless in all circumstances. And he made disciples who made disciples. He cast out demons. And he laid his life down for others. So you CAN SAY, "JESUS DRANK, so I can too." You better be out there raising the dead. We better BE LIVING OUR LIFE LIKE JESUS and not just cherrypicking the things that we like or don't like. >> Right? >> But again, we we we want to use the influence the influencer card as an excuse because again, scripture never shows us that Jesus got drunk. The world wants to say, "Oh, Jesus would have loved this person or loved that person." Yes. Jesus loved, but that doesn't mean that he embraced their sin and celebrated it. There were so many things that Jesus walked in and did. And it's not an excuse for us to do one thing or the other. So again, church, we need to evaluate the influences in our lives and evaluate whether or not we are being an influence in this situation or not. Because you may be the very person that someone in this room is praying, God, bring me a friend. Bring me a godly friend. And it could be you. You may be the one to influence. And so evaluate who's in your life. believe God to send people into your life. And and again, I wish we were closer to September and August when we're launching small groups because this would be a perfect time to launch small groups, right? Be a friend. You know, our small groups don't start till August. But here's the thing. You don't have to wait until the cruise director starts organizing tables in the room, for you to go have lunch with people, for you to invite people over to your house, for you to go to Bible study. I went to Gavin's Bible study the other night at Shake Shack. It was awesome. I got I got rocked. I walked away. I I tried to cover my tears. I was crying. I was wearing those big chunky glasses. I was just like, "God, you're so good. Gavin, you're awesome." It was just great. And it was just a few of us together gathered together as brothers. And we can do that. But it takes us being intentional and making decisions and following them through with action. Again, it's important that we gather together. It's important that we pray with others. It's important that we study the word of God together. It's important to serve on teams here at the church with other believers. And guess what? The people in our church are not perfect. That's why they're awesome. They rub they rub they rub each other the wrong way sometimes and they grow and they get be
