The ultimate end is to know God and to enjoy him relationally and openly and honestly and with joy.

And that really is what friendship is. And so it's to commune with God and then to commune with all of those who also commune with God together,

to be in a rich, open, deep, joyful friendship with the friends of God.

And so from beginning to end in the Bible, it seems like this is what we are redeemed for.

As Jonathan Edwards said, heaven is a world of love.

And Jesus defined love in terms of sacrificial friendship. And when we look at the end of the Bible, we have a world of love. And Jesus defined love in terms of sacrificial friendship. And when we look at the

end of the Bible, we have a world of relationships and enjoyment together in a new creation

that's portrayed as a city filled with relational joy. Drew Hunter serves as the teaching pastor

at Zion'sville Fellowship in Zionsville, Indiana,

and is the author of a number of books, including Made for Friendship,

The Relationship That Haves Our Sorrows and Doubles Our Joys from Crossway.

Drew, thanks so much for joining me today on the Crossway podcast.

Thanks for having me.

So it's almost a cliche these days to say that many men that we struggle sometimes with forming deep, meaningful friendships.

I think I've heard it said that although men often have lots of casual, maybe shallow friendships that nevertheless, many of us are

actually inside quite lonely and we don't feel the connections that we even wish we did have.

I wonder if you have any experience in your own life or as a pastor, as a guide. Do you resonate

with that?

How common do you think that those feelings of loneliness and maybe isolation can be among

men?

Yeah, it seems to be quite pervasive, especially now.

So there's a number of statistics that have come out over the past generation that have

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