The V-Formation of Friendship

Well, good morning, Summit family. Good to be with you.

If you've got your Bibles, please meet me in 1 Samuel chapter 18. It's always good seeing Chris. Every time I'm with Chris, I want to call him Leonardo DiCaprio for some reason. We've joked about that. We've joked about that before. We're taking a break this morning from our series as we've been going through the book of Daniel.

We're going to take a break from that. It's just amazing to me, all of the things that the Bible touches on. And one of the things that it touches on is friendship. And this morning, I want to give you a biblical, gospel-saturated vision of what friendship looks like.

And then I want to show you how we see all of these things in Jesus Christ. 1 Samuel chapter 18, pick me up in verse 1. The narrator writes, As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, so this is referring to David, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. And Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul, verse 2, took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David and his armor and even his sword and his bow and his bell. And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him, so that Saul set him over the men of war.

And this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants. Will you pray with me one more time? God, I thank you just for the scope of Scripture. Just, Lord God, of all the things you want us to know that you had eternally codified in your word. I pray, Lord God, in this culture in which we are in here in America, in the West, Lord God, that daily tells us to find meaning inside of us, that calls us to live in isolation, to be an autonomous individual, Lord God. I pray that you would give us a countercultural vision of what real authentic community and friendship looks like. I pray that in, Lord God, that you would be with me. Lord God, this is not about me.

This is about you. These people don't need to hear from a middle-aged man. They need to hear from an eternal God. And in the midst of all of this, Lord God, I pray that Jesus would be made much of. We need to see Jesus. I'm just even thinking that phrase of that great Brooklyn preacher in the 20th century, Gardner Taylor, he had ensconced right there on the podium whenever a guest preacher would come, they would see the words, we would see Jesus. And I pray that we would see him today. It's to that end, Lord God, I pray all these things. It's in Christ's name. I ask.

Amen. In the fall of every year, Canadian geese take off for warmer climate. And when they do so, they don't do it alone. They don't go as a collection of isolated individuals. They always fly together and they fly in something that we would call a V formation. Now, scientists have extensively studied Canadian geese and this whole idea of a V formation, and they have concluded that there are at least two advantages of flying in this V formation. One is except the lead goose, every other goose in this V formation, you're flying behind another goose and not only are you flying behind that goose, but you're flying slightly above it so that you're able to draft off of the energy, effort and exertions of the goose in front of you.

It allows you, here it is, to conserve energy. Not only that, scientists say that this V formation not only allows you to conserve energy, it also allows the geese to stay in close contact and communication with one another. In fact, scientists have actually learned that when a goose kind of taps out of the V formation, just says, man, I'm just getting way too tired and they'll go to the ground to rest, recover and recuperate, they'll never go by themselves. Another goose will leave that same V formation and accompany that goose on the ground and will wait for them until they have the strength needed to take to the skies again. And when they do that, they won't do it just the two of them, they'll link up with another V formation of geese. Geese have a lot to teach us about the journey of life.

Geese are smart enough to realize that you can't get to your desired destination on your own. You and I need others. I want to talk to you about friendship. Maybe some of you in the room, you treat friendship as an elective to the curriculum of life.

But the vision that the Bible gives us is that friendship is not an elective, it is core curriculum. So I want you to think with me right now, who's your V formation? Who's that, as Gordon McDonald talks about in his wonderful book, A Resilient Life, I highly commend it to you, who's your happy few? Who are those individuals that you're drafting off of, that you're living in close contact and community with? Now, we all know the African proverb, don't we? If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.

And so I want to know who's your V formation? I'm not asking who's your family. You and I understand that family and friends are not always synonymous.

In fact, I love what one writer says. One writer says home is that place where they got to let you in. Our family is who we're responsible for. We don't choose family, we do choose friends. I'm not talking about family. Sure, there's some cases where there's overlap, where it does feel like that sibling really is in the deepest sense of the term, your friend, but that's not all the time true.

Four times or not, it's not true. I'm not talking about your family, nor am I talking about your acquaintances. Many of you in here, God bless you, you're extroverts.

That's not my testimony. I'm an introvert whose love language is words of affirmation, which pretty much means tell me how great I am and leave. Plenty of you, you're extroverts. You're like my youngest son. I mean, my youngest son's favorite phrase is my boy. Every time he sees someone, oh yeah, that's my boy. Oh yeah, that's my boy. Sleepovers for Jayden is him and 700 of his closest friends. I remember living in New York City, true story, Jayden's about 10 years old. We'd be on the subway, man, on the other side of town and kids will hop on the subway and they'll look at Jayden and Jayden would be like, what's up? I'm like, what are you talking about?

He goes, that's my boy. So that's some of you. You've never met a stranger, you're always around people, but that doesn't mean they're your friends. In fact, John Tyson says a good way to distinguish between acquaintances and friends is the idea of the presence of conflict. If there's never any conflict and you're not having to experience it or if you're not working through it, those aren't your friends.

We call that networking. So I'm not talking about who you're around. I'm not talking about your family. I'm not talking about those you kind of hover at the low altitude of niceness with. Who's your happy few?

Who's your V formation? Now listen, this message is not about me trying to convince you that you should have friends. I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that is an innate desire that all of us have. I don't have time to fully explore this with you, but a part of what it means to be in the Imago Dei means that we have a longing for deep abiding a friendship community with others.

As Gilbert Biles Zickian says in his classic book Community 101, we have a longing to be known. That's part of what it means. In fact, in the opening two chapters of the book of Genesis before sin enters the world, we see God creating something and slapping high five with the Holy Spirit and saying that's good. He creates something else, slaps high five with Jesus and says that's good.

One time he high fives himself and he says that ain't just good, that's very good. And in the middle of all the creation, he looks at Adam leaving home from work one day, going by himself. Watch it now, sin hadn't entered into the world and he says that's not good. What's not good? Being alone is not good.

So what does he do? He creates Eve, he gives him a help meet and this just isn't about marriage, it's about friendship and all of this is before the fall. So our longing for deep abiding human friendship and relationship is not a fruit of the fall, it is what it means to be made in the image of God. In fact, show me anyone who says I don't need people, I don't want to be around people, people are too much of a headache.

I'll show you someone who's not speaking out of the imago Dei but out of the brokenness of sin because Proverbs says he who isolates himself is a fool. So I don't need to convince you of that, we're image bearers, we long for that. Now here's a statement I do need to convince you of, if you get nothing else I say you will miss this little Sunday school lesson we're having today. Here's a statement, you ready? Here's what I need to convince you of. What this text is going to show us and it's a major thing throughout scripture and I'll show it to you, is that you and I will never fully occupy all that God has for us by ourselves. Let me give that to you again, you and I will never fully occupy all that God has for us by ourselves. Now I notice the man who said that's good didn't say that's good right there.

Why? Because that cuts against the grain of how we're being culturally formed and discipled in America. This is the land of the individual. Every single day we're given a vision in which the ultimate in life is the unencumbered self. The ultimate aim in life is be by yourself, do it yourself.

In fact have you noticed a trend that the more money people make the farther apart they get from each other? It's kind of our dream, it's our vision and what happens when we want to live into the unencumbered self? Here's what happened, we don't look upward for meaning, we don't look outward for meaning, we look inward for meaning. In fact one Supreme Court Justice said it this way some years ago, he wrote in a brief, at the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence of meaning. You get enough individuals kind of looking inward for meaning living into this vision of the unencumbered self and what then happens you and I live in a hyper individualized society.

New York Times writer David Brooks, he's one of my favorite writers, he was an atheist until his 50s, recently has become a follower of Jesus. David Brooks says it in his stunning book The Second Mountain, he writes, look at it with me, our society suffers from a crisis of connection, a crisis of solidarity. We live in a culture of hyper individualism. There's always a tension between self and society, between the individual and the group. Over the past 60 years we have swung too far toward the self.

The only way out, Brooks says, is to rebalance, to build a culture that steers people toward relation, community, and commitment, the things we most deeply yearn for, yet undermine with our hyper individualistic way of life. Listen, you know my story, I moved here a little over a year ago with my family from the Bay Area and while the Bay Area and Raleigh are incredibly different, there are some points of continuity. One of the things that I'm picking up in the triangle is like the Bay Area, a lot of you are very accomplished individuals. You've graduated with degrees, many of you, you've built the business, you've constructed the career, you're knocking it out of the park, things seem to be going well on the accomplishment trajectory and yet here's my fear for many of you, maybe you've traded relationship for accomplishment. If I can just be honest and just kind of sit on the sofa with you, my last name is Loritz, I'm the son of Crawford Loritz, very accomplished individual, it's a shadow that is always over my life, I'll just kind of, I hope this is a safe place, keep this between us, don't let it get out there, but I want you to understand when I wrote my first book and they kind of sent me that galley copy in advance, you know the first thing I did?

I took that book, grabbed my dad's first book off the shelf, looked at the publishing date of his first book to determine how old he was, compared that with how old I am, so I know that whole accomplishment thing, you just go, go, go, go, go, you check boxes, check boxes, check boxes and then one day you look around and you're just like man, I've achieved some things, I've accomplished a lot, but I've traded relationship for accomplishment. Maybe that's some of you, highly accomplished people and I want you to hear me, the vision here of our text isn't either or. We're going to look at David and Jonathan and let's just call it what it is, they both are highly accomplished individuals. They're stellar leaders and yet these highly accomplished individuals and leaders form one of the greatest friendships in world history and one of the things they're going to teach us is that you and I, again, will never fully occupy all that God has for us by ourselves. Every single day the vision of friendship says we are going to have to go to war with autonomy. Let's come to our text.

Our text ultimately is not about tips to have great friends, that's too low of a vision. We must see our text through the lens of the providence of God. What is the providence of God? I love how Tony Evans defines it. Tony Evans says the providence of God is the hand of God in the glove of time.

It is a God who is actively at work in our lives and I need you to hear this, one of the lessons of our text is one of the ways God is actively at work in your life and my life is through the lives of other people that he gifts us along the way. So in order to understand this we got to go back to chapter 16. Chapter 16, David is anointed king.

He's the son of Jesse. Samuel comes to the house. The other brothers are paraded first and Samuel's like, it's got to be that one, Lord. Nope, it's got to be that one, Lord.

Nope. Finally, Lord says, look man, man looks on the outside, I look at the hearts. Finally, David is paraded and he's the one, he's anointed. Chapter 16 is around age 13.

The next chapter, chapter 17 is around ages 14 to 15, somewhere in there and in great courageous confidence. Here we see David and what we have in chapter 17 is an example of representative warfare where one individual represents one people going against another individual who represents another person. David represents the people of God taking on Goliath who represents the Philistines and in one of the most astounding upsets of all time, Israel wins. Oh, if I had more time, I'd show you a greater David in a greater military battle where on the cross Jesus became our representative and he took on the Goliath of Satan and through the death of Jesus, the enemies of God were defeated once and for all.

Now, chapter 18, if we fast forward it a little bit, here's what we're going to see. David starts out on the mountaintop of victory, but later on in chapter 18, he's going to enter into the valley of despair. Saul's going to take him into his house. Saul, filled with envy and jealousy, is going to try to kill David overtly three times and kind of more in a subtle sense, three other times, he's constantly going to come after David. Things reach a crescendo in chapter 20 at the lowest point of David's life.

Jonathan says, look, my dad has a vendetta on you and David will then spend the next 15 years of his life as a fugitive. Here is David on the mountaintop of success in chapter 18 about to go into a dark valley for 15 years in the providence of God. God is saying, David, the only way you're going to survive is I've got to gift you with a friendship who's going to see you through the crisis.

The lesson is clear. David will not fully occupy all that God has for him without the friendship of Jonathan. Oh, friends, we see this throughout Scripture, don't we? Where is Joseph without the friendship of the baker and the cupbearer?

If he doesn't have their friendship, he's still in jail. Ruth doesn't end up in the lineage of Jesus without the friendship of Boaz. Where's Peter, James, and John without the friendship of Jesus?

They're still fishermen settling for a life that is less than what God ordained. And when Saul, who would later become Paul, first gets saved, none of the Christian leaders will fool with him. And what gets him in is the friendship of Barnabas. Oh, the isolated individual is trying to cut off the fingers of the providence of God.

We need people. Well, what does friendship look like? What exactly does friendship look like? Our text gives us a stunning forensic into authentic, biblical, gospel-saturated friendship. Verse 3, will you look at it with me? Here's David, if you track with the end of chapter 17, David is called into a closed-door meeting with Saul and Jonathan, and here is David, I love it, end of chapter 17 tells us he's still holding the head of Goliath. So here he is holding Goliath's head, blood dripping to the ground, and verse 3 it says, then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. A covenant, simply speaking, is a binding agreement in the Scriptures, oftentimes not only between two parties, but one of those parties will be of a higher status with another party that's of a lower status. We see this all throughout the Scriptures, it's the Abrahamic covenant. God the higher status enters into a binding agreement with Abraham. We see it in the Mosaic covenant where God of the higher status ends up making a binding agreement with the people of God of the lower status, and we see it in the New Covenant.

All of us have been recipients of a binding agreement between Jesus, who is the higher status, and we, his people who are of the lower status. The idea of covenant simply is the idea of commitment. And yet whenever we see covenants in the Bible, there's blood. In Genesis 17, when God makes the covenant with Abraham, he kills animals. Under the Mosaic covenant, you are constantly going in and out of the tabernacle offering sacrifices.

There's blood. How did our covenant with God get ratified? Oh, it was the blood of a spotless lamb, the writer of Hebrews says, who made a perfect sacrifice for us once and for all.

So where's the blood in our text? The text says that Jonathan made a covenant with David. This text is in Hebrew, the Hebrew word for made is the word cut. Here's Jonathan just meeting David. He's the one of higher status. David is of the lower status, and Jonathan cuts himself.

There's blood trickling off of his hand, and he enters into binding agreement with David. What are we saying here? True friendship is predicated on commitment.

It's not predicated on performance. It's predicated on commitment, not contract, commitment. Now I'm going to be honest with you, Sumit. I've been studying this text all week as we've been preparing our time to study around the word, and here it is. It's just a stunning portrayal of friendship between David and Jonathan, and yet there's a verse in our text that sticks out like a sore thumb. It's verse two. All of a sudden in talking about David and Jonathan, Saul somehow works his way into the narrative. It says, and Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house. It's interesting. If you understand Saul's relationship with David, it's filled with fear and jealousy and envy.

It's very contractual. It's very performance oriented, and I think what the narrator is doing is comparing and contrasting two different paradigms for friendship. Look at it with me.

Here are the paradigms. Saul's take, Jonathan's give. Saul's have hidden agendas.

Jonathan's are transparent. Saul's are selfish. Jonathan's are sacrificial. Saul's kill, Jonathan's protect. Saul's seek to destroy destiny. Jonathan's want to fulfill destiny.

Saul's are contractual. Jonathan's are covenantal. As you take inventory of the people in your life, who are the Saul's? Who are the Jonathan's? Let's go a step further as you take inventory of how you friend others.

Are you more Saul or Jonathan? Do you treat people on a performance ethic? I've got to tell you, Summit, in this cancel culture in which we live, it should be the Church of Jesus Christ who is leading the way, giving the world a vision of what true friendship looks like.

But sadly enough, that's just not happening. I mean, if I wasn't saved and my only window into how Christians treat each other was Twitter, I'd never get saved. The way we speak to each other, the way we cancel each other.

My fear is that the body of Christ is more Saul than Jonathan. What then happens when we are in this committed relationship with one another, when we are just kind of modeling, listen, man, we're ride or die. I'm with you on the mountaintops of victories. I'm with you in the valley of despair and defeat. What happens when we just don't have this quid pro quo ethic or transactional performance-laced ethic towards friendship? What then happens?

Well, of course, now there's safety, and when there's safety, don't miss it. There's transparency. We see this in our text. Verse 1 says, as soon, speaking of David, as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. That phrase was knit simply means to tie. The same Hebrew word was used of a narrative in the book of Genesis where a woman named Tamar was giving birth to twins.

As she's in labor giving birth to twins, one of the twins sticks its hand out of the womb. The midwife takes a scarlet piece of string and ties it around that infant's hand, and that word for tie is the same word in our text for knit. It simply means to connect.

Well, what's being connected? The soul. The essence.

The deepest level and places of a person's life. And it's instant. It's this instantaneous connection. We've all been there, haven't we? I mean, if you've had kids, you've felt this. Obviously, for us as fathers, when our wives got pregnant, they felt this connection way before we did.

Oftentimes, for us, it doesn't really happen until those little tax write-offs come into the world and we hold them for the first time. I remember as a dad of three kids, first time I held my boys, there was this instant was-knit connection. Or maybe if you're married, the one you're with now. I remember, again, seeing Cory at church. For me, it was an instant connection.

For her, not so much. But I've kind of felt this. In all seriousness, some of you may be the one that you're with now. The first time you met them, there was just this instant connection and maybe you talked all night. Others of us have friends and we know this.

We might go weeks without speaking to a friend and then all of a sudden we speak to them after a prolonged period of time and it's like we talked to them yesterday. There's this deep connection. Now here's the point where there's soul level connection.

Don't miss this. Here's the stuff of friendship. When there's soul level connection, there's soul level communication. I want to show you a couple of instances of this and the friendship of David and Jonathan. We see it in 1 Samuel chapter 20. Jonathan has been lobbying hard for David and Saul is just relentless. In fact, Saul actually tries to kill Jonathan for sticking up for David and Jonathan's got to break the news to David that he's got to go on the run. And look at 1 Samuel 20 with me. It says, And as soon as the boy had gone, David rose from beside the stone heap and fell on his face to the ground and bowed three times and they kissed one another and wept with one another, David weeping the most.

Do you see the transparency? Or when David finds out that Jonathan is dead in 2 Samuel 1, he composes a song where he reflects on their friendship. It says this, Jonathan lies slain on your high places, David writes, I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant have you been to me.

Your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women. Some progressive or liberal theologians totally missed the point. They read this verse and they question the sexuality of these individuals because in their mind there's no paradigm for men speaking like this. What we see here is transparency. Gospel saturated. God glorifying transparency. Who do you talk to like that?

Who in your life do you get past the sports center talk? If you go to a doctor and you're hurting, one of the things the doctor is going to say in so many words is we've got to get some transparency here. So they're going to order the x-ray, the MRI, the CT scan. They've got to have, if they're going to relate to you well, if you're going to get healing, there's got to be transparency. Who sees the MRI of your marriage? Who sees the CT scan of your eating disorder? Who catches a glimpse of the x-ray of that secret sin you've been nurturing? Oh, my friend Dr. Larry Casas says we hurt in isolation but we heal in community.

Who's your happy few? I hope the Lord gives me a prolonged period of time with you guys and over the course of my time with you guys there will be something you'll find me returning to over and over again because I think it's one of the most helpful tools I could ever give you when we talk about building marriages, friendships, relationships, community. It's simply what we call the communication pyramid. They're going to put that on the screen for you. When we talk about the communication pyramid, in essence, by the way, it's popularized by an individual, popularized, not made up, but popularized by an individual who went to the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

I have no dog in that fight. But there's five levels of communication. And we're starting at the most surface and going to the deepest. This is so helpful for you really gauging the quality of your friendships and relationships. At the most surface level is cliche.

It's good morning, good morning, how are you? You've spoken but you really haven't said anything of substance. Levels two and level three are where most guys hang out. It's sports center talk.

It's facts, sharing what you know, and it's opinion, sharing what you think. Who won the game? How many points did Giannis have?

Who do you think is going to win the championship next year? Levels two, level three. Levels four and level five are the deepest levels of community.

It really helps you to gauge, again, the quality of your marriage, your relationship, your friendship. Level four is emotive. It's sharing how I feel. Level five is transparency.

It's sharing who I am. Parenthetically, by the way, here's what you should know. I really think the disconnect between communities of color and our white brothers and sisters when a racially traumatic event happens is communities of color, because they tend to be more communal, immediately go level four. This is how we feel while many of our white brothers and sisters hang out at level two, going, wait a minute, we don't know the facts. I just want you to understand when my wife comes to me level four, I've had to learn the hard way over 22 years of marriage. It's not conducive to a healthy marriage for me to hang out at lawyer land level two. But if I want to experience oneness with my wife, let me first stop and feel. That's what the Bible calls grieve with those who grieve. And then we can get to level two.

Who do you go level four and level five with? Who do you just go, listen, I'm not trying to dot my theological I's across my theological T's, but I'm mad. David and Jonathan have a substantive friendship because there's transparency. Let's go home on this one. When there's commitment, when there's covenant, when I know you're ride or die with me, it's not about my performance, but you're with me on the mountaintop.

You're with me in the back. There's safety and safety breeds transparency. And when we're transparent, now we are positioned to sacrifice for one another. Verse four and Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David in his armor and even his sword and his bow and his belt is unbelievable. It's interesting reading commentators here.

They man it's blowing their minds again. Jonathan, the son of Saul. Saul's the king makes Jonathan the prince.

Jonathan meets David for the first time. And what do we see him doing? He is relieving himself. He is stripping himself of his royal regalia.

Some commentators say this is mind blowing. That's what's happening here is Jonathan is literally abdicating the throne. He's communicating. You're the next king, not me. Maybe there's some truth to that.

I won't go that far. At its core, commentators are saying what we have here is vulnerability and sacrifice. Jonathan is saying, look, David, I'm so for you.

I'm so for your success. I see so much that God has for you that there's no sacrifice too great, that this won't be a relationship predicated on status because status breeds competition. I love what Dennis Rainey says.

Dennis Rainey says you put two men next to each other. Our natural inclination is to compete. Jonathan is saying there's no competition here.

I am so for your promotion that if it demands my demotion, then whatever it takes for you to occupy all that God has for you, I will do. Who in your life that you don't share DNA with do you have that kind of sacrificial commitment to? David is a nobody at this point. Jonathan has it all. Her name is Maya Moore. Maya Moore has been dubbed by Sports Illustrated as the greatest winner in women's basketball history. As a high school basketball player, she won the highest award, the Gatorade National Player of the Year. As a college basketball player at UConn, she won the highest award there.

There is the John Wooden Award. She gets to the WNBA. She wins the highest award there, the MVP multiple times. She's the first female athlete signed to Jordan Air. She's won championships on every single level, but chances are many of you struggle to even remember Maya Moore. Why is that?

Because at the height of her fame, she gave it all up. Why? For a man named Jonathan Irons. Yeah, you don't know that name.

Why would you? Jonathan Irons grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Jonathan Irons was a man in poverty. Jonathan Irons spent several decades in prison. He was accused of assault and robbery. But Maya Moore heard of Jonathan Irons and was convinced that he didn't commit the crime.

So at the height of her career, she walked away from basketball to work really hard to get him out of jail. He said, you are crazy. You don't even really know this man. He has nothing.

You have everything. What in the world? And guess what? She won again.

He was released. Now Jonathan Irons is a follower of Jesus Christ because Maya Moore, a follower of Jesus Christ, fueled by her faith in Jesus, committed to somebody who seemingly had nothing, and she leveraged her everything so that he could occupy all that God had for him. Oh, friend, but I see a greater Jonathan.

I see a greater Maya Moore. His name is Jesus. As the hymn writer said, what a friend we have in Jesus.

Jesus disrobed himself. He left the comforts of heaven and came to earth. He became our friends. In fact, that's how he relates to us. John 15, he says, these words of we, his followers, greater love has no one than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. He says of us, you are my friends. No longer do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing.

But I've called you friends. As our friend, Jesus has committed to us. He's entered into covenant with us, not contract. Our relationship with him isn't based on performance.

It is based on his performance. Because he's committed to us, we're safe. And when there's safety, we can be transparent with him. Have you not read the Psalms and the transparency David expresses to his greater friend God? That's why Jesus says you can come to me all you who are weary, heavy laden and I will give you rest.

You can tell me anything I'm I'm your friend. I'll never leave you nor forsake you. And not only that, but Jesus paid the ultimate price, the ultimate sacrifice when he died on the cross, when they ran a sword through his side and crown of thorns on his head. We are in friendship with Jesus because of his covenantal sacrifice on our behalf. Friends, I want you to understand you and I can have a V formation of friendship because the lead goes is Christ.

He's the one leading the way. In fact, dare I say there is there really isn't even any such thing as Christ exalting friendship unless Christ is leading the way. I can't sacrifice this way without Christ. I can't commit this way without Christ. Jesus is all. So maybe your journey into gospel saturated community begins with friendship with Jesus.

As the songwriter said, there's not a friend like the lowly Jesus. No, not one. No, not one. None else could heal all our souls diseases. No, not one.

No, not one. After service, there will be some individuals who will be available and can talk to you in more detail about what friendship with Jesus looks like. As we prepare to end our services, let us all stand right now. I want to say a prayer and then I want to commission us out. Father, in the name of Jesus in a world that says, look inward for meaning, that you are the captain of your faith, the master of your soul.

We shun that vision. We turn to the vision of Jesus in the scriptures. We declare that we need people. So Lord God, we pray that you would gift us with Jonathan's and we're open, Lord God, for you gifting us to others, to walking in authentic community.

So God, would you do that? We pray and we take this vision with us and we model, Lord God, sacrificial living as we leave this place. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Summit, you are sent. God bless you.