How to Make Friends - E2 - Vulnerability
January 14, 2024 • Trey Van Camp • 2 Timothy 1:6–18, Proverbs 26:24–26, 2 Timothy 2:8–13, 2 Timothy 4:17–18
One of the hardest but most rewarding features of any healthy friendship is vulnerability. We get the most out of our relationships when we allow ourselves to be fully known and truly loved. And yet, few of us actually experience this type of freeing love. Instead, we live in private shame over our weaknesses, wickedness, and woundedness. But the gospel frees us from fear and shame. By learning to practice vulnerability with those around us, we become capable of deep and valuable relationships. To get the most out of our friendships, we move from proximity to vulnerability.
How to Make Friends E1 - Proximity
January 7, 2024 • Trey Van Camp • Genesis 2:18–22, Proverbs 27:5–17
As connected, informed, and globalized as we are through social media and the internet, we’re also becoming more and more lonely. Fewer and fewer people admit to having close friends, and as life becomes more automated and individualized, it’s easier to go through our days without any meaningful interactions with other people. But this is far from the life that God designed for us. From the opening pages of Genesis to the end of the human story in Revelation, we see that God has always intended us to live in close proximity to one another — Adam walked with God and was still lonely before Eve; Abraham is called out to create a new close knit family; Jesus does ministry while in deep relationship with his disciples; Paul takes close friends like Barnabas and Timothy with him on his ministry journeys; and the early church grows because of their radical inclusion of their neighbors. To recapture these lost relationships and live the way God intended, we start with a simple step: moving towards people in proximity the way God moves towards us.