 It is a full house this morning. So I'm so excited to be here with you guys and to share one of my favorite subjects, which is friendships, relationships, are one thing that is within each and every one of us that truly desires companionship. And so before we dive in into scripture and just a couple of brief statistics and just a few things that got placed on my heart, I just want us to go ahead and just pray real quick for Holy Spirit to touch each and every one of you so that God can do what he needs to do in our lives this morning, amen. So Holy Spirit, we just thank you so much that you are here in this place. And we just ask that as I speak, that you will speak through me, Lord. I pray Holy Spirit for your anointing and for your power just to flow through this place. I know God that there's people and lives that you want to touch to impact with your word. And so we just ask Holy Spirit for you to take over this service in Jesus' mighty name. And everybody said, amen. How many of you guys have been blessed so far by the New Year, New You series from Pastor Vlad? Yes, and his wife, Pastor Lana, that shared on fasting, on healthy lifestyle and finances a great way for us to begin our 2018 this year, amen. I believe that all of you probably feel the same way that there's something stirring in the atmosphere for 2018. Do how many of you guys feel that something is on the horizon that God wants to do something? And he is already doing something. I mean, we have been prophesying, declaring, speaking of the vision of two services. It's not just about overflow. It's about the kingdom of God being an overflow, amen. Because every single person that is sitting here is a soul behind that number that we speak of. Every single baptism, every single salvation is one more soul added to the kingdom of God and one last soul going to hell, amen. And so that is what we are believing for this year for great things to happen. But most of all is the potential that is inside of each and every one of us, which is we are all sons and daughters of God, those that have dedicated their lives to Jesus Christ. And there's a lot of things that as we go into 2018, a lot of people do resolutions, New Year goals and all of those type of things. And so we're tackling about finances, health and all of that. And one thing is that what we wanna focus in on today is friendships, is companionship. And I just wanna bring up a scripture where it says in the very beginning of the word of God in Genesis 2.18, for the Lord God said, it is not good for man to be alone. And all the people that are looking for their fiancees this year says, amen. No, I'm just kidding. Okay, but no, truly, as God was in the process of creation, as he was in the process of creating this world, he wanted to make sure to make one notion. And he says that it is not good for man to be alone. As we are building this year, as you build your life with Jesus Christ, he wants to make sure that you are not alone in it. He wants to make sure that you surround yourself with the right people that will bless you, that will build you, that will motivate you, that will stir up the gifts inside of you, amen. Not just mentorship, but companionship, friendship. It is truly within each and every one of us that has this indent, this imprint of wanting to have a friend. Am I right? Some of you may have lost it. Some of us may have lost it down the years of rejection, isolation, brokenness in the family, completely hurt from school. It has been lost, but it's always been deep, deep within us. It is literally an imprint in all of us to have companionship and friendship. Before I was asked to speak on this, there was one thing that I was already fascinated by this, by my three year old now, a daughter who had this complete. And I mean, there you can see them. This is my daughter, Eliana, with her best friend, Kylie. So I wanted to bring this up because this is completely amazing. This is my fascination. As long as she was able to walk, she wanted to be around friends. She wanted to be around her specifically. And I mean, I don't say this word lightly. She was obsessed and is obsessed with Kylie. And I was just so fascinated. I'm like, what do you know about friendship? What do you even know about friends and all of this companionship? But it's indented inside of our fingerprint and in our DNA, it's within each and every one of us, even at the age of this, that we want to build life and have these enjoyments with people. The greatest joy in everyone is to share love. I did some studying on psychology and they did a research on the top values and feelings and emotion. And the top one is, of course, the expression of love, but not just an expression to give it to you, but for you to give it to someone. And so that is like the number one feeling which is love, which I'm sure you guys all knew. But of course, let's just go ahead and just read some fun statistics that I came across that of course that I thought was quite interesting. In a lifetime, you make 396 friends, but only one out of 12 friendships last. Not having any friends can be dangerous to your health just as bad as smoking or being overweight. Close friends share, this is one of the most interesting ones. Oh, your brain reacts the same way when you're in danger and when a friend is, reacts the exact same way. And this one was really just, I was so fascinated by this. Close friends share about 1% of their DNA. A recent study suggests that close friends share 1% DNA making them as close genetically as fourth cousins, which is really interesting when you, and I'm sure you probably have noticed when you're with someone constantly, you start talking the same, looking the same. You even say like, oh wow, we kind of look alike. I mean, for those that can marriage, you're kind of close to your spouse and you're like, we're starting to look alike, act the same way, say the same things, like the same things. It is because we carry mere neurons. What we see constantly is what we will begin to behave as. So I thought that was quite, quite fascinating. So here's just a couple of, when your close friends influenced your weight and your health habits. So of course, what we talked about with the health, I took the Daniel plan by Rick Warren and there was a chapter about friendships and how actually being surrounded by friends helps you either become obese or actually live a healthy lifestyle. And they're actually a community, like a community completely was at the worst statistic of health, I mean, overweight, lot of health issues, a lot of health concerns, but then it became a ripple effect where just a couple of people came together and said, you know what, we're gonna change the statistic in our city. It was the worst health statistic in that city, in our nation, but then they completely, just a few of them decided to say, you know what, enough is enough. A few people gathered together and said, let's begin to make a healthy lifestyle. And other people, it was like a ripple effect, a domino effect, one after the other, started to say, you know what, this is our life. We need to go ahead and change that. The power of influence and companionship in community is truly vivid when it comes to just two statistics in our lives and whatever you want to say is that we influence one another, truly. If you believe in yourself and say, I cannot be a leader, I'm just not made for that. I'm not influential. I'm not inspiring. I can't hold the mic. I don't know the scriptures like this person or that person. I wanna tell you right now that you truly are influential. It is indented inside of each and every one of us that you can make an impact. Isn't it true, there's this two type of people, the people that you truly want to be around with or the people that you're completely repulsed by? Yes, anybody know who I'm talking about? Yes, you're kind of starting to think of the people. It is true, but there's those people that are like, man, you just suck the living life out of me. I need to go and take a nap or do something. I really just need to go away from you. And I mean, of course, you're not saying that, but it's very fascinating to me. I do a lot of the, what's it called, counseling and I talk to people and I started to just kind of draw this concept. I'm like, there's these people that you literally want to just be around them and there's those type of people that want, you just are repulsed by it. I don't want to do anything with you. Now, what happened? What's going on here? What are those people that are over here and what are these people over there? Well, I wanna tell you is recently I had someone that passed away and she was a really great person in my life. She was a coworker that I worked with and something was amazing about that woman. Wherever she went, people just were drawn to her, were completely just in love with her. She was so caring, so loving and obviously it made sense because she was Christian. She was a woman of God and she just loved on people. She always wanted to help people. So when she passed away, went to the funeral and there was crowds. I mean, it was completely overflow. She impacted thousands just because of her being in a relationship with God but allowing Holy Spirit to flow through her. Amen? That is the key that I wanna talk about real quickly is that the enemy knows your potential. He knows where we are going as a church. He knows that people here and people that are watching on live stream need to be minister to individually. But as we get bigger, it is more difficult to talk to people one by one. Just last Sunday, I turned around and Natalia was right there and instead of me saying, is this your first time? I changed the way I've been saying it as saying, is this your first time or is it my first time meeting you? And she said, this is my fifth, sixth time coming. I was like, oh my goodness, I cannot believe that I have not seen her this past few Sundays because once upon a time, everyone knew everyone. And I mean, to the point where like, I already said to that person seven times, I re-talked all my subjects out, I have no idea what to see them to anymore. And now we have a good problem, okay? We have a very good problem is that we don't see everyone that comes in or goes out because the kingdom of God is on the horizon of growth. Amen? Amen? Come on. And with that, the vision that we want to portray is that as Pastor Vlad said, is to have the biggest church in tri-cities. It's not for the namesake, but for Jesus' sake, for his name and for his glory, amen? And with that comes numbers. And so with that, we want to establish relationships so that everyone has that individuality. And through that comes through home group, through that comes through mentorship, through that comes with establishing council with accountability. There is no such thing, no such thing as growth without a mentor. And well, without the people around you. There's no such thing. I want to tell you something where my husband, Ilya, he proclaims, and I proclaim too, that he is the best driver out there. So, I mean, once he's on the road, and I'll tell you, when I met him, when I met him, which was 14, he picked me up for church. We were on our way to church. This was like first, second time. It was in this purple minivan. And I'm thinking safe. So, go in, and he was nuts. And I'm not even exaggerating. I was so afraid for my life. And my mom's waving goodbye and saying, like, bye honey, enjoy church. And I'm on a way on the highway, like to hell I thought, because I'm like, this is crazy. He's driving and saying, nearly touching semis. And I don't know if he was just showing off in front of me, but I'm telling you, it was no show off. I was praying salvation prayer. I'm not kidding you. I'm not kidding you. That's where I asked Jesus to come into my heart was the day he was driving me to church. And I'm not even joking. And so, my point is saying that, no matter how good you are, no matter how good you are in your skills, or you think you're a very strong person, you have some blind spots. So, it doesn't matter if you think, you know what, I'm fine without a mentor. Okay, maybe for just a little while, but I promise you, blind spots are always there. Ilya is an amazing driver, and I still declare that he is, because truly, I'm like, how do you learn these skills? And if I did that, I would be worried for all of our lives. But at the same time, it's a blind spot. Let me just tell you what that is. Areas on road cannot be seen while looking forward. So, you might be looking forward in your life. You might be doing all the right things, having visions, having vision boards, doing absolutely everything that you can think of, that you will always have blind spots. There's a couple of times in incidences where our fights, mine and my husband's, I'll be vulnerable right now, are on the road. Because we have our two little ones, and he's driving, and he really thinks that there's nobody there, and I'm like, babe, there's a car right there. And he'd be like, I didn't see, and he's like, it was my blind spot. And as good as he is, he still has them. So, my point to saying is that mentorship, what we want to establish as we continue to grow in our church is mentorship, and that comes through going into a home group. I had a situation in my life that I wanted to be just a little bit vulnerable with you guys. It's the same thing where if you can, Priscilla, draw the picture of, not draw, but just bring the picture of me, Larisa, and Angie. So, how do we get ourselves away from the enemy's tactics and going into the right direction? Now, this is a, these are two powerful women of God that really served me well. And the beginning of my marriage, which was about eight, nine years ago, we were not doing so good. I was Christian, I was serving in the God's church and the kingdom of God, but generational curse was still after me. It didn't look at my age. It didn't look how many times I served at the nursery. It didn't look that I was everywhere and anywhere. It still found me. But what I did was I fought back. And what I did is that I sought mentorship. And I said, okay, just as Pastor Ilya was saying, is that if you want to grow in business, if you want to grow in your life, look at the person that you want and you want it to happen for you. Look and seek it. So I did. I sought mentorship and I said, I need your help. I need your prayer. I need you to fight my wars with me. I cannot do this alone. And so I saw after they prayed, they fasted with me, they mentored me, they counseled me, they guided me and they got me out of my roller coaster. And now I am married 10 going on 11 years. Come on. So my point is saying all of that is that the enemy is after you. And he's after two things. And two ways he's after you that I want to focus in on is first off, he wants to create isolation in you and surround you with toxic people. Those are the two ways that I want to focus. There's a whole lot more, of course, that I can list and list on. But the two ones that I want to talk about is isolation and toxic people. Isolation will always make you feel like people are the problem. And number two, toxic people will always make you feel like you're a problem. So isolation is completely the enemy's plan. Even every time people are in war, the enemy will do, even in natural wars, is that the best place for you to be attacked is when you are isolated. So here's a couple of statistics on isolation that I found quite interesting is that what isolation does is when your world dies before you do. So a psychologist said that, and before I read the statistics, is that your world dies before you do. A terrible and the most saddest feeling to feel is when you're trying to move with your life or try to live but you're truly not living. You're truly not living to your fullest potential because everything enemy is already taking. Everyone is against you. Everyone's against you and everyone's out to hurt you. And one of the things that it said is that social isolation is a growing epidemic in America. Loneliness has doubled from 20% to 40% since the 1980s. Individuals with less social connection have disrupted sleep patterns, altered immune system, more inflammation, and higher levels of stress hormones which causes diabetes, which causes heart disease, and so on and so forth. Isolation increases the risk of heart disease by 29% and stroke by 32%. This is my last one I want to read to you guys on. Socially isolated individuals had a 30% higher risk of dying in the next seven years and that is the effect which was largest in middle age. We need to be surrounded by people. God did not design you to be isolated for you not to have people that will love on you and to build life with. He did not design it that way. God does not want you to be alone for he said as I bring back that scripture, Genesis 2.18 he says for it's not good for man to be alone. We need each other. The influence, the thing that what could happen when we gather together, when we unite together, it says in Genesis 11.5 when they were building the tower, God said, he said they are united as one with the same language, they are unstoppable. What can they do next? I'm rephrasing the scripture but that's exactly what he said. He said, what can they do next? That is the power of uniting that with us coming together is where we kind of get vulnerable, take down those walls and begin to trust again. I want to bring up a testimony of one girl that I asked for her to let me share. Her name is Ella and Ella got baptized last year and she, if you can bring up the picture, thank you. I really tried to take a good picture of her as the YouTube video was playing so I'm so sorry. Doesn't do her justice because she looks like she's grating but the point is that she was explaining her testimony and it was absolutely powerful. She was expressing how she started off with a life of no father and it drawn her to go to the wrong crowd, to the wrong people that terrible things have happened where she began to compromise a lot of things. She got into drugs, she got into alcohol, she got into the wrong crowd but then Jesus Christ began to touch her and she started to come to services committedly, she devotedly, started to come constantly and she came to home group a few times and I talked to her after service and I said, what was it that helped you at the home group? And she said it was the environment that we were actually able to trust each other and open up and people cared, they truly cared and a person with that type of past can say that says something. Does it not? It says something. I'm sure the people that are brand new and they come to home group, it's scary. Trusting people because the people that hurt you the most were people, right? You guys all know that the worst pain comes from a person and the greatest joy comes from the person. So even though someone may have hurt you in the past and there's no trust at all, it is taking that risk, taking that step and saying, even though I feel this way, I'll take a step and she did and her life is being transformed till this day because she's surrounding herself with the right people, receiving mentorship and guidance as best as she knows how but that is taking that step and that is the power of a home group. Home group is not just for tea and coffee. I mean, it's great when that's there but it's also, there's a vision of home groups. That vision in home groups shows that we can minister on a personal level. I don't think anything lower of a home group where I'm wasting an hour of your time and I'm wasting an hour of my time. I wanna get some business done. I wanna destroy some demons, amen. I want to, I want healings to happen. I want salvation to happen. I want deliverances to happen as we're coming together in that home group, amen. I don't want anything else. I don't wanna chit chat. I can do that on a one-on-one but when we get together and when we begin to pray, I expect, we expect for things to be shaken in the kingdom of darkness, amen. The enemy is afraid of you. He is afraid of you. I wanna tell you the devil is powerful but he's predictable and he knows how this works and he knows first is that he wants to kill your identity so that you never walk in confidence of who you are. So that's what he does. He isolates you to remove people to build you up and then he gives you toxic people to destroy what you think you are, okay. So he will try, he knows how you work because once you discover what you're about, once you discover who you truly are in Jesus Christ, that he says you can trample over scorpions, that you can cast out demons, that you are victorious, that you are more than a conqueror, come on now. If you only knew what you are capable of, if you only knew, things would be absolutely different. So he is after your identity. So he wants to make you alone so that no one will tell you different. So that mentor won't tell you that I see a future in you. I see that you are called to be a prophetic or called you to be an evangelistic tool. I see something in you because one thing is powerful to be surrounded but it's another thing to have someone that believes in you. If you look at all of the great men of God in the Bible, they question themselves. Think about Moses, God, not me. I cannot speak and he says, am I the one that gives you the mouth to speak? It is I, Gideon, not me, God, but he tried to push him to believe in himself. Somebody needs to believe in you. Yes, God himself, but mentorship, home groups helps with that. Amen. So, amen. So my point to tell you is that what we need to do this year is to get rid of some, I don't wanna say toxic waste because we don't wanna do that. That's terrible, I don't know why I said that. I'm sorry, but to get rid of the people that are burdening you and the reason why I say is that you don't want to say I'm better than you. See ya later. You don't wanna ever do that, absolutely not. Because one day you will influence them. Yes, amen. Because it's either right now they're influencing you or you're influencing them. There's no middle, there's no middle. So if you are in a position where they're influencing you, walk away. And once you are strong enough and you have other people surrounding you, then you go back and get them over here to your side. Amen. So, with your influence, because you have it, the enemy wants to surround you with the people that will try to destroy your name, try to bring you down, break you down, try to make you feel that it's always your fault by manipulating you, by all of those things. There's so many types of people that psychologists have listed that state how a toxic person is negative, breaking you down instead of building you up, corrupting your integrity, suffocation, manipulation, removing faith and adding doubt. Now, I wanna speak to some people that have been in a battlefield of being afraid to let go of their friends. Cause I know that there's people out there that have this problem. I've had that problem too. And I was afraid to let them go cause I didn't want to be alone. And I felt like I worked so hard to get these friends. But at the end of the day, they didn't really care when I left. But the point is, is that if you stay with them, what's gonna happen is, is that you should be afraid to not leave your friends but be afraid of that you will never become of your destiny. And it's not about being afraid to leave the people but be afraid that your destiny will never come up. Now, if you're thinking, oh, my friends don't have that much power over me. Well, I wanna tell you that thinking is wrong. And there's a scripture that I wanna share with you that happened. All of you know the story of David and Gideon. Yes. Now, before David was about to take, oh, David and Gideon, Goliath, I'm so sorry. Yeah, they all came together. They were such great men of valor, no. The story of David and Goliath. Now, Goliath comes and he starts to speak against the men of God, God's people and says, who will challenge me for 40 days and for 40 nights? All of these men were afraid of this Goliath. He was kind of scary looking, I'm sure. And so, everyone was afraid and holding back. Now, here comes David walking in and he starts to ask questions. Now, it says in 1 Samuel 17, if you guys want to follow. And verse 26, David asked the soldiers standing nearby, what will a man get for killing this Philistine and ending his defiance of Israel? Who is this pagan anyway, that he's allowed to defy the armies of the living God? So he's kind of like, who is this guy? Like trying to bring down our God and make him think that he's terrible or something like that. But then, jump to verse 28, it says, but when David's oldest brother, Elab, heard David talking to the men, he was angry. What are you doing around here anyway? And he skips to verse 29 and says, what have I done now? David replied, I was only asking a question. He walked over to some others and asked him the same thing and received the same answer. Then David's question was reported back to Saul and the king sent for him. Now, I just really want to take this and I'm going to wrap this up, is that his brother, Elab, his three older brothers were exactly those toxic people. He said, who are you? Aren't you supposed to go back to the sheep? What do you think you're doing? Go sit back down. Don't you dare go and try to start asking questions. What those negative people were trying to do is stop him from becoming one of the greatest men of God in the Bible. Try to stop him from fighting that Goliath. What would have happened if David was with those brothers? He would have been one of those brothers that were standing 40 days and 40 nights. But, but because he wasn't hanging out with them, he became that David God called them to be and he walked into his destiny, amen. So I just want us to just take this time and say it's not just friends. It might look seem like my friends are not holding me back. If they are bringing sin into your life and there's no growth, they are. And it is time this year for us to take a challenge and say, you know what? I'm going to reach out to mentorship. You know what? I'm going to go to a home group. I'm going to do what Pastor Vlad said and I'm going to go and search those groups and I'm going to make time, even though I'm afraid just like Ella was, but she took that chance and said, I want something more in my life because that destiny is calling you. Watching this content, I hope this was a blessing to you. If you're like me and you like to click on things, click on this, subscribe to our channel and the content will come to you every time we post it. And remember, the best is yet to come.