What Does It Really Mean To Be BFFs?

In my final point of last week’s message, I mentioned an interesting reality of Christian friendship. Christian friendship is forever. As with the rest of the Christian life, our time on earth is practice for Heaven. That means we better learn how to get along here. You see, God is going to give us opportunities and test us at our obedience. There is no doubt that we will have friction with our Christian friends on earth. And when we do, that’s the perfect time to work it out and learn how to be a better friend… because you’re with them forever!

This all got me thinking about what it means to be friends forever. Do you know how long forever is? It’s a really, really, really, long time. I want you to imagine getting an eyedropper, grabbing a drop of water from the ocean, flying to mars, dripping that drop on mars, flying back to earth, grabbing another droplet of water, and repeating the process until all the oceans of earth were transported to Mars. How long would that take? After some complicated math that I will not attempt to replicate, ChatGPT told me that when you include the 18 month round trip, the process would take 39.96 quintillion years. That is 39,960,000,000,000,000,000 years. Or 2.9 million times longer than scientists estimate the age of the universe.

When we’ve been there 39,960,000,000,000,000,000 years, we will have just gotten started. What will make those years meaningful? Friendship. First our friendship with God, who our forever exploration will find no end. Second, our friendship with others.
Tomorrow we’re talking about practicing for those forever relationships. I’m going to help you with the positive ways to pursue eternal Christian friendship. Praying I will see you tomorrow!

P.s. Sunday November 10, 2024 is the annual Emerald Necklace B.A.A. half marathon. So, if you’re coming from south of Jamaica Plain, plan accordingly. Give yourself a little extra time to make it to church. We included a map below to help you navigate your way.