Christian friendships are like exercise. If it's not hurting, it's not working. I hate running.

Because the first three minutes are so painful. No, the whole thing is painful, really.

There's some small parts from like, okay, I'm enjoying this, but then that goes away pretty quickly.

And then I get home, and then I'm like, okay, I'm glad I did that. Why?

The endorphins. That's a great feeling, feeling strong, feeling healthy. That comes from

Christian friendships only. God designed friendship for us to sharpen each other.

But iron sharpening iron is a violent process.

Only a diamond can cut a diamond.

But diamonds don't cut diamonds just to cut each other, just to hurt each other.

Diamonds cut diamonds to make each other more beautiful.

Iron sharpens iron to make each other more effective.

That's what God wants to do through friendships.

But only Christian friendships have the power available to do this.

We'll get into that.

But worldly secular friendships don't have that ability.

Worldly secular friendships, they stay on the surface. They may appear to be deep at times,

but because they use worldly philosophies and secular ideologies to appear to be deep. They're not really getting

deep. They're staying on the surface. But even the ocean has a shallow zone. It's called the beach.

But it also has depth. Christian friendships are called to be both,

not one of the other. They got to be deep at times. And of course, hang out, shoot the breeze,

talk about shallow things at times. But without that depth, depth, there's no growth. And only Christians have the power

to be both. Only Christians have the power to have the kind of relationships that are truly, deeply

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