Trying to get my Ububtu Server to work.

Note: Apologies if my language isn't entirely accurate, I'm new to this
I am trying to setup a Minecraft server for about 4-5 friends that we can all play on instead of spending money paying for hosting. I saw that Ubuntu was good for this type of thing so I started to figure out how to make one with 0 experience and I think I've come as far as googling will do me. What I have right now is a ubuntu server that has Minecraft installed and can be run and was connected to successfully via LAN, but now I'm trying to make it available to devices outside my network. I tired port forwarding but no matter what I did it never seemed to work so I looked for ways to avoid port forwarding and found NordVpn Meshnet. I am already paying for it so I decided to try to make it work which it seems like it should, but so far no luck. I got the meshnet setup and can ping the server through the meshnet Nordname but can't connect to the server in Minecraft still. Is there a better way to avoid port forwarding? Is there a better way to make my server for what we are trying to do? I just am so lost and feel like every fix I try breaks more stuff.