The Divine Antidote to Loneliness | Lisa Harper

I um for those of you I haven't had the privilege of meeting yet, I know we've got a lot of new families at Gateway. I claimed y'all as family. Uh the first time I came to Gateway years ago, I just fell hard and I fell fast. And so, thank you, uh, Pastor Daniel for saying that very gracious comment.

But I need to tell y'all what a gift it's been to get to walk as a cousin the last year and a half. Uh, the stories of redemption that I didn't deserve to walk up close to, but I got to hear the testimonies of what God was doing.

I think anytime you have a church that's stripped back to the studs and you're basically standing in your bathing suit in the middle of Sears and Robook for everybody to see the opportunity for God to be glorified in that kind of restoration, that kind of redemption is is a miracle.

It is it is a legitimate miracle. and to get to see what God has done here in this family. And it was great prior to everything that happened and to me your former days are going to pale next to the days in front of you. I believe it's going to be a Caleb kind of house.

I um I told our friends last night that we had a a real sweet Ebenezer this past Wednesday in my little family. Uh those of you I have not yet met, I'm old and I'm not married, but I am a mama. So I got the baby before the daddy through the um through the miracle of adoption.

And when I started the adoption process with my daughter, she was very very sick in Haiti. And the doctors in Haiti encouraged me not to start the adoption process. They said she would only live for a couple of months. So they said there's no sense in beginning the adoptive process.

It's going to be long and she's not going to live. and we went to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital last Wednesday. My daughter is 16 and we just sat with the doctor. She said, "I've pulled all her tests. We don't really have to do much. Missy is perfectly healthy, is healthy as a horse by the grace of God."

And we just basically we just praise the Lord soberly because a lot of other parents at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, that's not their experience. And so I was very cognizant of the fact that it's just God's goodness that my 16-year-old daughter is healthy and has a long life projected.

That's only God's goodness. But we last Wednesday was just such a red letter day. And then she had hip-hop class that night. And so while she was in hiphop because babies got all the rhythm, old white mama's got none. So, I sit outside so I won't bring my rhythmlessness into the dance studio.

And I'm sitting outside in the parking lot and I just got my favorite drink of the season. I love hot chai. And I get a non-fat chai with extra whipped cream because I feel like the whipped cream and the non-fat milk balance each other out. And it's totally keto if you do it that way.

And I'm drinking my chai and the weather has turned cold in Nashville. And so I had my car on and I had my seat warmers on and I just had that, you know, those moments that just everything in you exhales, not just your lungs. You just go, "This is a good day." when one of the one of your elders called me uh several months ago and said, "Uh, Lisa, I just want you to know before you hear it in the papers that Pastor Daniel and Pastor Tammy have said yes, God has aligned their steps to align with this family and they're going to be the new shepherds of Gateway."

I had that exact feeling. I can tell you exactly where I was in my house and I just sank down in a chair and went, "What a good God. What a good God. What a redeemer. What a restorer." Um, and I'm not just blowing sunshine at the Floyds.

I had the undeserved privilege of meeting Dr. Daniel and Tammy years ago and loved their house in Virginia. And the fact that God has ordered the steps of their lives to to just intersect with the steps of this amazing family as a cousin from the cheap seats, I'm telling you, I go, only God could have put that pot with that lid.

You know, that just fits. It's just a good good thing. And so would you just take 15 seconds not to blow sunshine at the Floyds, but to give more praise to God that he knit this together with the way he has. Would you say thank you? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for where this house is. Thank you for the renewed hope. Thank you for redemption. Thank you that we're excited driving into the parking lot again. Thank you that we smile instead of weep in the house of God this season.

Thank you, God, for what you've done. Thank you, God, for what you've done. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Jesus, thank you that you take broken things that from our human perspective seem almost irreparable. We think, how in the world can you restore this?

And you begin at what seems to be impossible, but with you, all things are possible. Thank you. Thank you for not just uh the redemption in Gateway's story, but but thank you for the care, the specific care you've taken with every detail that you didn't just knit it back together, but that every thread fits, every color blends.

It is a beautiful tapestry that speaks to your merciful restoration. And so Lord, as a guest in this family, I just say I can't wait to see the future. I can't wait to see what is ahead for this family. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We give you all the praise this morning. Thank you. Uh Jesus, we confess right now that we can't understand this love letter called the Bible apart from Holy Spirit. So Holy Spirit, would you continue to have your way in this family this morning? give us bigger eyes to see and bigger ears to hear and more plant hearts, softer hearts, more humble hearts that would be receptive to whatever seed uh you choose to plant in us as a cohesive family this morning.

We love you, Jesus. We can't make it by ourselves. So, we ask all this. We praise you and we prayer prayerfully ask for your help through the authority of your name. King Jesus, the king of all name, king of all kings that one day every knee will bow before Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Amen. And amen. Um I I've heard a couple of babies hollering and it's probably because of my accent because I know I sound like I was raised in a barn. Do not worry about your babies hollering. I've said this before at Gateway. I became a mom through the miracle of adoption when I was 50 years old.

And I do not deserve to be my daughter's mama. And so when I hear the sound of babies in the house of God, that sounds like music to me. And so when I see saints look over their shoulders and glare at whoever's holding the baby, I'm like, I hope you get hives.

There should be no dirty looks with babies in the house. Now, if your baby cries for like 15 minutes, go out in the lobby and give them some Dramamine. But if it's just a little cry, we we love that it sounds like family, don't you? I always feel uncomfortable in churches where it's like everybody's wearing emotional Spanx.

Everybody's stiff and everybody has it all together and nobody can just be honest. I think that's not church. That's a country club. That's performative. That's not the house of God. We're family. every age and stage of feeling. Sorry, I've gotten into a whole another sermon here, but when uh when Pastor Daniel told me y'all were in a series on the Proverbs, um I got intimidated because I'm not very good when it come to comes to the Proverbs because discipline has never been my spiritual gift.

But I also smiled because the Proverbs were my father's favorite book. And my family of origin is is Pretty Jerry Springer. And my daddy was a hot mess. Three marriages, three divorces. My mama was a second life wife. He left us when I was 5 years old for one of his secretaries.

Um just messy, messy life. He grew up Nazarene, grew up pretty rigid and they kicked him out of the Nazarene church um after a second divorce. And then he just fumbled through many other churches until an Assembly of God church in Central Florida where I grew up just enveloped my daddy.

And he lost everything. My dad was a contractor, had been real successful as a developer at one point in his life. And he ended up losing everything. And all of my dad's identity was in success, was in money. And the night before he lost everybody, he was losing our ranch.

We had a little ranch. Um, I grew up loving cowboys. I still I'm not attracted to men in skinny jeans. Um, sorry. No, no offense intended for all of you 40 and unders, but if you just buy a real pair of jeans, I'm just telling you, it'll bless the women in your life.

We just want you to wear real pants. And if you wear short crop pants, those are for children or golfers. Go ahead and wear pants that extend all the way down to your shoes. Anyway, my dad taught me to love cowboys and creassodin fences. And that ranch was was kind of his identity.

It showed he had made it and he lost it. And the night he lost the ranch to foreclosure, he was walking around the property. And my tough dad, he was little, 5'7, 150 pounds, soaking wet. Um he was tough, put himself through Treka Nazarene College, uh riding in the rodeo.

He rode Bronx in the rodeo. big old belt buckle. Little man, big belt buckle. And uh which is what I've put on my e-harmony profile. Um I mean I'd prefer a bigger guy, but if you got the belt buckle and you love Jesus, I'm in like Flynn, baby.

But um my dad lost everything. And that night that he was walking around the property, he had kind of a Damascus road experience. There really was a bright light. And my dad was not Pentecostal, was not given to signs and wonders, but there was a bright light. and he heard God's voice and God broke my daddy in the most beautiful way and he was never again uh successful based on the opinion of man.

But my dad looked like Jesus by the end of his life. And every single morning from that day forward after he lost everything, my dad spent from 4:30 to 5:30 in God's word. And then he spent another 30 minutes just praying for my sister and I, his kids that he had abandoned.

And then he went and picked up fellas who were not only food insecure, but didn't have a place to live. And those were the guys that he went and did kind of small houses because he had lost his big commercial license as a commercial contractor. And he mostly did small work, but he did it with men that he met at the homeless shelter just to love on them and talk to them about Jesus.

And my dad made me fall in love with the Proverbs because that was his favorite book in the Bible. He loved the Proverbs. Our our Hebrew scriptures, our Old Testaments, they're divided into three parts. We've got the instruction TRA and then you've got the prophets beginning with major prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah going all the way through the minor prophets.

I used to think they were called minor prophets for the because they were little petite fellas. um probably with crop pants, but that's not what it means. The minor prophets means that they had shorter prophecies. And so that goes all the way through Malachi. And then there's this third section that includes Proverbs and the Hebrew Bible.

The third section goes all the way to the end when we canonized it. It's different in our English Bibles, but the the third the last section in the Hebrew scriptures is the writings. Dr. Famro can tell you how to pronounce that in Hebrew, but that includes proverbs and that's where we find the most wisdom in the Old Testament.

I know Pastor Daniel has explained that wisdom is not just about making ethical decisions. Wisdom is about making faithful decisions. The most God and others honoring decisions, especially when there's a multiplechoice answer. one of the proverbs and we're going to focus on this one this morning that my dad taught me.

He taught me in in just a classic Everett Harper kind of way. My dad didn't use a lot of words. Um I got most of his words because I'm a windbag. He was just kind of more of a quiet guy, pretty gut uh gutural. And if my dad used words, you paid attention to him because not that many fell out of his mouth.

It was a Sunday in well I was 12 years old so it was back when the dinosaurs roamed and we didn't have the internet. It was a long, long time ago. I was 12 years old. The reason I remember I was 12 years old because it was the season of my first really big crush and it was on a fellow.

I won't tell you his last name because of the internet nowadays, but his first name was Jimmy. He now goes by James according to his wife on social media. So anyway, Jimmy was my first big crush. And we went to my dad, the ranch was out in the country, so we went to this little Baptist church and I always sat up front.

How many of y'all are under 40? We sat on pews. They were long wooden benches. We used to have in church when we had revival. They didn't have air conditioning. You were supposed to suffer in the house of God. No cup holders, no coffee. I'm sitting on a pew.

I'm up about a third of the way. And I'm just waiting for the service to start. We didn't have kids church back then, you know. And if you take a picture of me, clearly from the waist down, I'm gonna punch you in the throat. Um, so so she's a friend of mine.

I can tease her. But but I'm sitting about a third of the way up. Service hasn't started yet. You know, all the kids were in church at that point. And then I smell him before I see him because, you know, back in the day, boys would just coat themselves with whatever was pre-ax, pre- polo.

He just was wearing probably aqua velvet. Just he rire of aqua velva. So I could smell him before I saw him. And here comes Jimmy. and he saddles into my pew and sits right next to me. I don't remember anything else spiritual from that worship service cuz I was just like it was just glorious except I almost got pury from inhaling all the aquaelva and I was so excited and then during maybe the second hymn remember we had to turn in the himynelss and find the page number.

So whatever him hymn it was, we turned to bring in the sheav or something. Jimmy reaches his arms up and he puts his arm around my shoulders and I was like, "Oh, I was thinking thoughts that aren't in the Bible except for Song of Songs." I mean, it was so exciting.

And we sat down after the hymn and then I felt somebody tap me on the shoulder. Now, this was not a gateway kind of church. This was a wonderful but very rigid, stiff church. We wore panty hoes, honey. I mean, you didn't wiggle in this church. And so I thought, what in the world?

I mean, pastor's walking up just about to preach and somebody is tapping me on the shoulder. So I turn around, it's my dad. And he went, "I shouldn't use you as a prop because you're a man." He went and I was like, "Oh, goodness gracious. I don't know what I've done, but I'm in huge trouble because my dad has interrupted the service." remember how we'd have how many people came to church?

Did you have that, Pastor Daniel? It would be like 126. I'm like, you're counting the dead people. Um, but you know, it was like I don't remember how many people, let's say 200. And I thought in I mean, those churches, you don't get up and walk out of church.

There was only one aisle. My dad just goes, I follow my dad out the church. And I thought, I don't know what's happening. This is like Armageddon feeling. I mean, this is a big deal. We get into the the we just had a dirt courtyard outside the the front doors of the church and dad said, "Get in the truck."

And I was like, "Yes, sir." And he said, "I ever see you swapping slobber with that boy and I'll be on you faster than gravy on rice." I don't even like gravy on my rice. I like butter on carbs, rice and mashed potatoes. I prefer prefer butter. But I couldn't follow him.

I thought, "Why is he talking about food? And why did I just get pulled out of church? And he drove to the house completely silent. It's like 10 minutes. And I thought, my father has lost his mind. I thought, he has been out, you know, sniffing creasso too much, doing the fence.

I don't know what's going on with daddy, but he's lost his ever loving mind. We pull in the house and he goes, "I want you to go stand on that picnic table." And I was like, "Yes, sir." I mean, out in the sidey yard, we had a big fire pit. country people, you know, we had, you know, the old, not fancy picnic tables, just the old rough wooden picnic table, and we sit up there and we'd have a fire.

He said, "You go stand on the top of that picnic table." I was like, "Yes, sir." And so I go stand on the top of the picnic table and I thought, "What? I I don't know where we're going." My dad stood below me and he said, "Give me your hands, Lisa."

And I said, "Yes, sir." And I extended my hands and he real gently pulled. And when he pulled, I fell off the picnic table into his arms. And he said, 'Now, I want you to sit right there. And I said, 'Yes, sir.' And he said, 'Lisa, I want you to learn this now.

If you choose the wrong friends, they will easily be able to pull you down to their level every time. But it's almost impossible for you to lift someone with bad character up to your level as a young woman of God. I want you to be careful about the company you keep. >> I didn't know my dad was exaging straight from scripture when he did that.

But I'm telling you that picnic table incident has come back to me so many times in my life because it is a biblical truism about wisdom. It is almost impossible for us to make good decisions if we have let people pull us off the picnic table of biblical faithfulness.

And Proverbs has that truth all throughout this book. This this proverbial father who's giving advice to his son says over and over again, be careful. Be careful about the company you keep. Choose wisely when it comes to friendship. Proverbs 13 verse 20 says it this way. Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Ain't that interesting? The the proverbs don't denote harm to too much cable or too much caffeine. The proverbs says you will not have a christoologgical life. You won't be shaped like Jesus if you choose poorly in your friendships. Conversely, in Proverbs, it denotes choosing good friends. Turn to uh I don't know where we're turning.

Proverbs 17:17. Turn to Proverbs 17:17 and 18:24. Proverbs 17:17 says, "A friend loves at all times." And a better translation of that Hebrew is a friend loves in all kinds of times. >> He's not explaining there that it's 247. Frankly, if you have a 247 friend, sometimes that can be codependent.

But to have a friend who's with you through thick and thin in all kinds of times, that's the kind of friendship that leads to wisdom. Because once again, wisdom isn't just about making moral decisions. Wisdom is about making God and others honoring decisions. So are you choosing friends?

Are you choosing relationships where that person has got your back at all times? Proverbs said those are the kind of friends that you want to choose. There is a friend he says who sticks closer than a brother. We always attribute that to Jesus but actually in Proverbs it's talking about a peer relationship.

There are friends who will love you and that love is a different type of love than a familial love. CS Lewis talked about that. CS Lewis is my pretend theological boyfriend. And in one of his classic books, the four loves. This is what CS Lewis writes. To the ancients, friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves, the crown of life and the school of virtue.

The modern world in comparison ignores it. Affection and aeros romantic love were too obviously connected to the brutes. You could feel these tugging at your guts and fluttering in your diaphragm. But in friendship, in that luminous, tranquil, rational world of relationships freely chosen. Stop there for just a minute.

Put a pin in that. Relationships freely chosen. I love my family, but my family, we have got some hot messes. There is a lot of tangled threads in my family. And so sometimes with regards to my family, there's a whole lot of duty. My mom is in the early stages of dementia.

We've got some addiction in my family of origin. And if you know what it is to care for an aging parent and you've got some messy stuff in that family, I'm telling you, sometimes I'll get off the phone with my family and I just have to weep because it is hard.

And I know God will ultimately work everything out for our good and his glory. But sometimes family, it's suffocating and it's hard and it's almost like we're too close to it. But a friendship freely chosen. CS Lewis says there's grace in that. That's a different kind of grace.

He doesn't put it on a hierarchical scale. He doesn't say friends are better than family. He says you need friends who don't share your DNA because there's a freedom in that. And if they're walking with God, they'll help you walk closer to God. friendships, relationships, freely chosen. I want you to think about the people who you have freely chosen to walk alongside you this season.

Who would be your ride or dies? My counselor said, "Friends are kind of like a really good pair of shoes." She said, "Every single woman needs at least two pair of good shoes. One pair of heels and one pair of flats." Can I get an amen? It doesn't matter if you have 50 pair of shoes.

We'll all go back to one pair that we know are comfortable if we've got to walk a long way. They got to be kind of cute, but one pair that are comfortable, one pair that are dressy because that makes our calves look more attractive. But those have to be comfortable, too.

Men, you do the same thing. You've got a pair of casual shoes. And then if you have to go to a wedding or a funeral or your wife is mad at you because you didn't dress up for your anniversary, you got one good pair of dress shoes. And you probably cheat and have soft soul dress shoes.

Those are not dress shoes in the south. You have to have a hard soul for it to be an official dress shoe. Can I get an amen from the wives? Right. And they pick those cushy shoes. I'm like, that is not a dress shoe. That is just in between.

But she said, "You need at least two." And she said, "If you have two, you're blessed." She said, "Very few people in modern culture where we are more connected digitally than we have ever been, very few people have two real true friends. People that you can call at one o'clock in the morning.

People who know where all the bodies are buried. people who know your real weight, not the one we used to list on our driver's license. She said, "Seek two friends who walk with God." And then another one of my pretend theological boyfriends, Dr. Tim Keller, he passed a couple of years ago.

I can't wait to see him again in glory. I got to meet with him a couple of times. Godly, godly, godly man. He breaks down those true friendships in four characteristics, four C's so they're easy to remember. He says, "A true friend based on the parameters of Proverbs, those relationships that help us not be pulled off the picnic table of of Christlikkeness.

The four C's are constancy, carefulness, cander, and counsel." Let me break those down just a little bit. Constancy. And that goes back to Proverbs 17:17. A friend who loves in all kinds of times, all kinds of times. I used to work for a ministry called Focus on the Family.

I love Focus. They had crazy dress code. This was back in the late 90s and I couldn't wear open toed shoes because if you were a woman on staff at this ministry, somebody had told Dr. Dobson that the line between a woman's big toe and her second toe is reminiscent of cleavage.

And so we couldn't wear open toed shoes. Now I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. But I thought if some man is struggling because of my sandals, I think there's a bigger issue than my footwear. But super super serious dress code. And one day I was walking out of the bathroom and a gentleman came walking toward me.

A lot of employees at that point about 1,200 people was walking toward me and I just love love love this guy. Godly man was with the ministry. Walked through the Bible before he came to focus on the family. Speaks Hebrew. I mean, just a godly saint. And at that point, I was going to work for another ministry and he knew it.

And he stopped and he said, "Leiss, I want to speak a blessing over you." And I was like, "Oh, this is just awesome." And he begins to speak this blessing over me there in the hallway outside the restroom. And it was amazing. Except he wouldn't look at me.

The whole time he's blessing me, he just kept kind of looking off over the sea of cubicles. And I'm real relational. My friends will tell you I'm just all up in their business. And so I wanted him to make eye contact, you know. So as he's kind of shifting, I kept kind of scooting, trying to get into his line of vision.

And he just w he was resolute. He would not look at me. And I thought, well, he's just pondering something, you know, in Hebrew or Greek, something deep. And and so he said goodbye. Wonderful blessing, just not very personal because he wouldn't look at me. He turns and walks away.

I turned to walk away. When I did, I felt this little draft. So, not only did we have to wear closed toed shoes, I had to wear a dress every day unless it was snowing or below 32. And we had to wear hoes. And I hate panty hoes.

I think the devil manufactures panty hoes. So, I would cheat and wear thigh highs. Gentlemen, don't Google it. You won't be able to unsee it, but they're faker hoes. And they have a real tight band at the top so they won't roll down. Um, well, I I had evidently gotten a little enthusiastic in the restroom and had accidentally tucked my skirt into my nether regions.

And so there I am standing in the hallway of what was at the time the largest parurch ministry in the world in my thigh house as Stan Kelner talks about holiness. Just stand there. I am not an easy woman to be friends with because sometimes I'm an absolute But I have friends who stick by me.

Carrie Job called me when I was hospitalized a couple of years ago and it looked like I might not make it out of the hospital. And Carrie called me and she said, "I just found out you're sick. I couldn't speak. The congestion in my lungs had crystallized and it was shredding my lungs."

And so I the phone was open on my hospital bed, but I couldn't speak at all. And Carrie said, "We're praying for you, Lisa, and we want to sing healing over you." And Carrie began to sing and I began to cry. And I thought, "Oh, no." Because if I ever cried during that stint in the hospital, my numbers would just go berserk because it would cause me to not be able to breathe and I was already on all kinds of oxygen.

And there was a guy who would take care of me. I had a real serious case of COVID. And he wore, remember Dustin Hoffman out? He'd come into my hospital room with a full-on hazmat suit and a hat thing and a rebreather and gloves. I thought, "He's going to kill me.

He's going to press the wrong button." I was like, "Please don't let him come in." So, I started crying. I panicked because I thought all the bells are going to go off. But nothing went off. Tears dripped onto the sheets because Carrie prayed healing, saying healing over me.

And that was the beginning of turn. That's the beginning of when my lungs began to work again. a friend who is a constant friend, >> not a fair weather friend. >> That's all throughout scripture. Jesus models it. Constancy is so important in friendships. And then the Proverbs say that carefulness are critical when it comes to choosing those few ride or dies.

Carefulness. Proverbs 16:28 says this, "A perverse person stirs up conflict and a gossip separates close friends." >> There's a difference between secrecy and privacy, y'all. If you have a friend who doesn't honor the private things in your life and instead disguises those private things as prayer requests and tells people, that person doesn't yet have the emotional maturity to be a a wise friend, as Proverbs denotes, wise friendship.

I I'm going to be your auntie for a minute. And this doesn't apply to most of y'all, but as I've prayed for Gateway, I've noticed some of y'all have a hard time disciplining your thumbs. And there's some trash on social media. That's not wisdom. That is not wisdom.

Proverbs talks about confrontation. So there is an appropriate place to say I believe this is out of line. There's an appropriate place to bring conflict. There's an appropriate place for confront confrontation. It's not Instagram. >> It's not X Y or Z or whatever they call it now. Be careful >> with privacy.

Secrets are rooted in shame. Secrets that's unhealthy in the family of God. Privacy is rooted in wisdom. There are things that you speak about in a private way for reconciliation that you don't heir for all the world to read. I I'm telling you, I know I'm old as dirt, but I think social media is ruining wise friendships.

And I'm not antisocial media. It's in inanimate. But the the hearts we bring to social media. When you're lonely and you've got your iPad, please exchange your iPad for a Bible. >> Please just begin to look at the life of Jesus Christ before you go on and post something that doesn't honor your neighbors and it doesn't honor God. >> Carefulness.

See the hearts of the people you get to walk with as being worthy of being protected. Not coddled, but protected. Irene Reini knows things about me that would get me fired. I disqualify myself for ministry on a regular basis because I'm human and I'm not perfectly sanctified. And sometimes I think words that aren't in the Bible.

Sometimes I say them in Dallas traffic. But I'm sorry, Pastor Daniel. I will repent after this. I I love Jesus >> and my aim is to be more Jesus shaped in every every area of my life, including my mouth. But Irene has been Irene has been with me when I have not looked like Jesus.

And she hasn't told a soul because she loves me. >> She doesn't love the sin in me. And that's why there are times that the third characteristic cander is key. Proverbs says, "The kisses of an enemy are not nearly as valuable as the wounds of a friend." I was driving with a friend not too long ago and I was talking about how another friend had hurt my feelings and I was just talking smack and she quoted from Proverbs and she said, "Lisa, when words are many, sin is not absent.

And I thought, I hate that verse cuz I'm a big talker when words or many sin is not absent. And I thought, I'm going to say something to her. I'm going to say something where she's just trashy. And it was something along the lines of your mama. And so I turned to make a retort to her cuz she had hurt my feelings, saying my mouth wasn't holy.

And when I turned to say something to her, I saw the tears streaming down her face. And I didn't say anything snarky. I realized, man, she has paid a high price to confront me. She wasn't trying to point out a shortcoming. She was trying to shorten the distance that I had created between me and my creator redeemer by being a yahoo. >> She was saying, "Lisa, he loves you, but your mouth doesn't look like Jesus right now." cander.

The very last characteristic of the kind of friends Proverbs encourages us to be and to develop is counsel. Proverbs 27:9 says, "Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice." One of my mentors at Denver Seminary, he likens that kind of friend to a pinball machine.

He said that in biblical friendship, wise friendship, as Proverbs talks about the relationships that keep us moving toward Jesus, keep us on the table of Christlikkeness, if you will. He said those those friendships you'll have authenticity. You don't have to wear Spanx with each other. And and you'll have some level of reciprocity. you will both recognize I need your counsel and if you ask it I will give you counsel.

There's a there's a reciprocity. And he said, "Let me explain it to y'all." He was talking to our doctoral class. He said, "Let me explain it to y'all in the context of a pinball machine." He said, "Some people in your life are drainers. The ball of your heart will bounce over to them because there's a lot of lights and a lot of noise, especially at the beginning of friendship.

But your heart will inevitably drain through. You know those people that don't hesitate to call you at 1:00 in the morning with their emergency, but they wouldn't receive your phone call at 6:00 in the afternoon. I'm not saying don't love those people. Well, I'm saying they're drainers. So, that's not your two godly, wise friends.

They may grow into that. But if you've got a 1:00 a.m. caller who's not a 1:00 a.m. call, those people don't need to be in the innermost circle of your life friends, but those are not your ride or dies. He says, "There's a few people who are flippers, and when the ball of your heart bounces to them, they extend your playing time.

They're with you as Proverbs 17:17 says, through all kinds of times, high times, low times. Those are the friends who look like Jesus. And that's how we learn to be flippers. The very last moment of friendship we see in his incarnate life. He's gathered the 12, his closest friends.

He's got his inner circle of Peter, James, and John. And then he's got the 11. Those are the nine. and those are his closest friends. And they were not constant and they were not careful and they did not have wise cander and they certainly didn't offer good counsel at this point of their friendship with Jesus.

He already knew Jesus Judas was going to betray him. Peter had already been all dramatic. He probably drank a bang. Wash all of me. I'll never betray you. I mean, yahoos. big old yeus, all of his his friends. And instead of turning and walking away, do you remember what Jesus did?

He got down on his knees. The king of all kings condescended to the floor and washed their feet. And then he handed Judas communion, knowing Judas was going to betray him. And then he said, "In the future, I want y'all to recognize that to be close to me and to be like me, there's a new commandment.

I want you to love people well. I want you to love people like this." So, absolutely choose people wisely. But if you want to have true friends, you need to be a true friend. And the only way we can be true friends is to marinate in the life and the love of Jesus and then try to at some human level model the way he lived.

He is the friend who sticks closer than a brother. Let me ask y'all to stand up as we close this family meeting. And I apologize. I've gone over. I already confessed I was a windbag. But I still think it would be good as a family to do something tactile because my gut says, as a mama in the house, I'm 62 years old and I have a lot of shortcomings.

But what God has fertilized in my life is empathy. I think because I've been such a I recognize when there's fellow morons in the room. I got really wounded when I was a young woman. A lot of abuse, a lot of abandonment. And so I made some inner vows.

I decided as a little girl, nobody's ever going to get close enough to me to abuse me again. And I'm never giving my heart to anybody else because everybody who is supposed to been safe with my heart has eviscerated it. What I didn't know as a young woman is that unhealed wounds become idols.

And so for years I tried to be in Christian community and and have relationships, but I wouldn't let anybody pass the fence I built around my heart. I came up with godly phrases to to justify having a fence around my heart. I didn't have true friends. I had a whole mess of acquaintances, but I didn't have true friends because I wouldn't let anybody in.

And my gut says there's some of y'all here this morning and you you know what that feels like. Maybe you're a caregiver. You give a lot of yourself away, but you feel like there's nobody you could call if you needed caring for. Maybe you've been really wounded by someone who called themselves a Christian and you're just kind of afraid to give your heart away again.

And so even a message from a guest on friendship and how scripture says it, this isn't from Oprah, y'all. This is from God's word, that may kind of step on a bruise in your heart because you don't know that you can point out a real friend right now, somebody you could call at 1:00 in the morning.

And so I'm going to ask those of you who are lonely this season. I'm just going to ask you to come to the altar. That's not a pitiful thing. That's an extraordinary courageous thing to say. Holy Spirit has poked me and I want to confess in family. I need some people to pick up the corner of my mat and carry me to the roof and lower me to Jesus because I'm lonely and I actually need some real friends.

And I'm willing to at least open the gate in the fence that I've erected around my heart. Would y'all respond to God's wooing, saying, "First, I want you to lean into me. I will be the friend that loves you at all times. You will never see my back.

You will never see my brows furrowed in disappointment at you. I will never, ever, ever unfriend you. Would you come forward and just recommmit? He is the friend that I need more than any other friend. But also come forward." And we've got prayer counselors want to pray with you.

If you go, you know what? Maybe I'm new to Dallas. Or I'm a new Christian. I've got some friends who are Helens. I I don't have anybody to do life with who loves Jesus. I I'd love to be in a Bible study, but I still smell like cigarette smoke and I don't know how to crossstitch Habachic.

So, I come to Gateway, but I come by myself and I slip out before it's over because I don't want to be embarrassed. I don't have anybody to go to lunch with. Please, please, please. This church is uh it's family. We want to wrap our arms around Jesus.

Sorry, I've talked long enough. Let's open the altar. Anybody who's lonely, come. Anybody who needs more of Jesus, come. Anybody who's been betrayed in friendship and right now you're going, I I'm going to I'm going to risk again. I'm going to risk giving my heart away to another image bear.

Come to the altar right now. If there's any other reason you need healing in your body, you need healing in your marriage, come to the altar. We're going to pray for a minute as family and then Pastor Mark or Pastor Daniel, Pastor Mark is gonna is going to dismiss us to chips and queso.