New Relational Strategies for a Changing World
Tom Shrader addresses how to build and maintain relationships in a changing world, drawing from biblical examples like Paul and Timothy. He teaches that Christians must be givers who put others' needs first, neighbors who serve those in need, faithful friends who love at all times, and committed lovers in marriage. The teaching emphasizes that genuine relationships require sacrifice and the willingness to be hurt in order to experience deep connection.
“In every relationship, at every moment, you're either ministering to a person or manipulating them.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: How to Stay Afloat in a World That's Circling the Drain (2002)
Recorded: 2002
Duration: 45 min
Themes: relationships, friendship, marriage, sacrifice, service, love, faithfulness, giving, struggling with loneliness, building friendships, married couples, young adult, new believer, mentor, husband, navigating relationship conflict
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 2:6-8, Philippians 4:8, Philippians 2:19-22, Luke 10:25-37, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, Proverbs 17:17, Proverbs 27:17, Proverbs 27:6, 1 Corinthians 7:1-5, Hebrews 13:4
Theological Themes: biblical friendship, christian community, agape love, selfless service, covenant marriage, biblical manhood, spiritual friendship, sanctified relationships
Full Transcript
Today we're talking about a series called "How to Stay Afloat in a World That's Circling the Drain." It's the idea that the world is changing all around us, that there are forces in constant change. Obviously nothing is changing faster right now than the markets.
I got this email Tuesday, so by this point probably everybody on the planet has seen it, but it was investment advice. If you bought $1,000 worth of Nortel stock a year ago, it's now worth $49. If you bought $1,000 worth of Enron stock a year ago, it's worth $16.50. If you bought $1,000 worth of WorldCom stock a year ago, it's worth less than $5. But if you had bought $1,000 worth of Budweiser - not the stock, but the beer - if you bought $1,000 worth of Budweiser a year ago, drank all the beer, and turned the cans in for 10 cents deposit, you'd have $214.
So the conclusion of this story is, based on the above, my current investment advice is drink heavily and recycle.
A World of Change and Uncertainty
Andy was doing some business up in Vegas two weeks ago, and he stopped and looked at a billboard. Probably some of you have been up there for conventions - certainly not for pleasure, but for conventions. I've seen the billboard where it says "Take the Challenge," and you play tic-tac-toe with a chicken. If you beat him, you get 10 grand.
We're trying to figure out if we can beat a chicken at tic-tac-toe. Our conclusion is it depends on the chicken. I don't think I could lose to a chicken. I think I could tie a chicken, but I don't think I could lose to a chicken. But who goes first? I've asked all these questions, and then it strikes me as odd that we're talking about playing with a chicken. This is still a chicken.
We have something more substantial than that. We've talked about all sorts of things: removing anxiety, adversity, benefiting from hardship, the fact that things are changing. This is actually an eight-week series. We've had to skip some of it, so if you want to go back and order it off the tapes, you can do that.
The Challenge of Human Relationships
What we're looking at today is, in a world that's changing, we're talking about human relationships. We're talking about this idea that somehow we're interconnected. How do we handle relationships?
Here are some things that we've seen. I did not change any of the outlines, and probably will next time. We actually introduced this series in 1990, believe it or not, right at a time we were looking and saying we're coming out of the 80s - what are the changes, what can we anticipate? It's amazing how fresh this is.
People built strong networks in the past, and now relationships become weakened. It is fascinating how many people can invite 100 acquaintances to a birthday party, but have no one they can call when they're really in trouble. That's what we're talking about. Houses got closest together, but neighbors grew further apart.
A Personal Journey to Phoenix
I remember when I moved down in 1975. A friend and his family were moving down, and I said, "Well, I think I'll go too," weather being the driving force. We got into Flagstaff at dark. I'd never been out here, didn't know anything about it. I figured, "What the heck."
I woke up in the morning, and there was Flagstaff, and I said, "This is incredible. This Phoenix is going to be a beautiful place to live." He said, "Well, we aren't quite there yet," and I said, "Oh, really?" So we came down the hill, and the terrain changed. Even Black Canyon City looked okay, and then it just kind of moved.
We got to Bell Road in 1975. Many of you have been around since then. You came over Bell Road, and once you got to Turf Paradise, after that going east, there was nothing out there - nothing. We got to a sign that said "Welcome to Scottsdale." I moved - you've got to remember, I'm moving for the weather. If there's one thing I cannot stand, it is snow and rain. I don't like precipitation.
We get to the sign that said "Welcome to Scottsdale," and I'm not kidding you, it opened up and rained just like it did the other night. It poured. The other night I was at church, my car was maybe the distance of this room, and I stood there 20 minutes before I could get up enough courage to finally go to the car, talking to people, and it was just pouring. That's what it was like, and I thought, "What in the world is going on?"
Cultural Shifts in How We Live
Then, just acclimating. I'd never seen palm trees, really. I remember the first Christmas down here, when people had these lights on these palm trees, I said, "This is really kind of cool." But the one thing that struck me, that we did not have back home, were all these walls around all the yards.
When I was a kid, you could run - let's think - one, two, three, four houses through the backyard, and then you'd hit a hedge you could poke through, and there was a fence that some people put through. But most, or many of the backyards anyway, you could run for houses before you hit a fence.
Very interesting, just the terminology. I was born and raised in a neighborhood, but we now live in planned development communities. We're sharing common walls with people we don't even know. We're at zero lot lines - the houses have never been closer. And yet, the neighbors are relatively unknown.
The Friendship Crisis
Here's the third thing that we saw in the 80s: the Dow hit an all-time high, but friendships were at an all-time low. It really doesn't matter about the market as much as the friends idea. We're going to talk about this this morning - the friends idea.
One of the things that never fails to happen when we start talking about friends...
I will see guys 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, who will come up and say, "I don't have, and I've never had a friend." I was talking to Bob Shank about this one time, and he said, "I just finished a men's conference. I was talking about friendship. A guy came up—there were a bunch of guys lined up—and he said, 'I'm in my 50s, and I've never had a friend.' And the guy behind him said, 'Excuse me, I couldn't help but overhearing—probably because I was listening—I couldn't help but overhear, I'm that same age, and that's exactly my condition. That's why I'm here too.'"
The last thing is this idea of mergers in business, and yet marriages were at least at that point in decline. We're just talking about not hanging in there. But in the early 80s, if I remember correctly, and I'm shooting from the hip here, so I could be wrong, but over a five-year period, the average age at which people were getting married increased by almost five years. That's unprecedented in the history of the country, with huge implications. And here's what I'll say: "I'll sleep with you. I might even bring a toothbrush and a change of clothes. But why buy the cow when the milk is so cheap? I'm not going to be around, see?" So that's what you're coming out of.
Four Levels of Human Relationships
We're going to talk about human relationships on four levels today, and I think they all overlap: being a giver, being a neighbor, being a friend, and for some, being a lover.
Being a Giver
The idea of being a giver is giving my life away. We're not talking about cash here. That always is part of it, but we're talking about giving your life away.
Paul is an example. You've got your outlines in front of you and references there. You can look them up. Let me read them to you as well. Paul's an example. He writes back to this church at Thessalonica, a church that he was instrumental in founding. He writes back and he says this in 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 6: "As apostles of Christ, we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well."
And he goes on to say, "We have the right, by the way, to have you take care of us. You offered to take care of us, but we don't want to be a burden to you." We're talking about being a giver. Here's a great example. Paul said, "Listen, we didn't just share the gospel with you. We shared our whole life with you."
In Philippians chapter 4, verse 8, Paul says, "The things you heard, the things you saw, the things you learned from me, now do them." Paul said, "I was a living role model for you." And the way we started was by not meeting our needs, but we came to meet your needs.
If somebody calls you when you get back to the office this afternoon, and somebody calls you—somebody you haven't heard from in a while—and they say, "You know what, Bob, I'd like to get together for lunch." If you're like me, your first question is, "What are you after? What do you want? What are you selling?"
I had a guy that called about a month, maybe a little more than that now, and he called and he said, "You doing OK?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm doing fine, thanks." He said, "You look so tired. Are you all right?"
Now you've got to understand, I have little idiosyncrasies. And one of them that drives me nuts is when somebody says that. I hate that. And I know it's people who care and love and all this. The problem is, I've probably had a dozen people, more than that, who are not close friends, say to me in the last two months, "You look so tired." I said to Susan the other night, "I must look like crap, because people that I don't know are stopping me in the store and saying, 'You look so tired.'"
And I said, "No, I'm OK. I mean, I'm going hard and got the wedding going on and a lot of stuff, but I feel good. I'm hanging in there." And he said—here you go, here's this guy—"Is there anything I can do for you?" And that was his comment. I said, "Boy, if I think of something, I'll give you a call, thanks so much." And it meant so much that he called. That's what Paul's saying. We came here, there were things that we could have used—I'm assuming Paul was tired—but he says, "Listen, we're here to meet your needs."
Timothy: Following Paul's Example
Now Paul was an example. One of his students was a guy by the name of Timothy. Remember what Paul said: "Everything you heard and you learned and you saw in me, now you go do"? Isn't it Timothy?
Paul's writing to the church at Philippi. I love this passage. Those of you who mentor—it doesn't matter, women mentoring women, men mentoring men—you're in a position of leadership or you've got somebody that's looking up to you or somebody trying to figure out what are those key ingredients in an active Christian life, vibrancy, here you go.
Paul writes to the church at Philippi: "I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I may be cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one else like Him who"—I'm going to stop there.
If you got a letter from somebody in California and they said, "We're sending over a guy," and I'm telling you what, and it's a guy like Paul, you get a letter from a John MacArthur or a Chuck Swindoll or one of those guys and they say, "Man, we're sending a guy over. I got nobody like this guy." Our mind might race. We'd say, "Boy, I'll bet this guy can preach. I'll bet he can teach, or I'll bet he can sing. I'll bet he can lead worship."
Oh, maybe not. He's an innovator. He's an entrepreneur. He's on the cutting edge. Maybe it's that. Or not so much innovation and vision—he's a great manager. He's great with operations. He can organize things. Or maybe he's not an organizer, but he's certainly an operator. He's not an originator, not an organizer, but he is an operator. That's how my mind would think.
This is what Paul says: "I have no one else like him who takes a genuine interest in your welfare." Isn't that amazing? They're all excited. There you go, the word's coming. Timothy's coming. He's
Paul's protégé, this is the guy that Paul says, "I don't have anybody like him." We hear that, we get calls periodically from people at church saying, "Do you have anybody on staff? Do you have anybody that's ready?" The Apostle Paul, they're saying, "Send us somebody, send us somebody," and he's saying, "I got nobody like this guy." This guy is head and shoulders above everybody. What separates him? He takes genuine interest in your welfare, for everyone else looks out for his own interest, not those of Christ. But Timothy, he's proven himself, and that's the way he's proven himself.
If you are going to be a giver, you have to put other people's needs above and beyond yours, not just their spiritual needs, but their physical needs. Here's a word that gets a bad rap, and I understand why: a holistic approach is the totality of a person.
Responding to Real Needs in Difficult Times
About a month ago, I kept saying, "I feel like there's this cloud that's just gloomy, that's hanging. I don't know what it is, it's just gloomy." It feels like a little bit of the terrorism stuff, it feels like the economic stuff. Well, the cloud certainly didn't lift in the last month.
You've got people, and I really mean it, and I don't want to turn this into politics at all, because I'm sure that we easily could, but you've got people that have really been hurt badly in the last two months. Now my personal view, just so you know, is not that you need another law. That's what they were doing yesterday: "We're going to double the penalty." You just gave the guy a hundred counts, where the penalty is five years per count. You're going to send Him to jail for a thousand years? It reads well. Here's what we want you to do: get out of the way, let this work, it'll work itself out.
But you've got people that are really hurting. You've got guys that have been corrupt, and those guys need to go. You've got people around you who did reasonable things with their money and now they're 63, 64, 74, who are retired who are going to need your help. So that's what a giver is.
He also uses, later on in this same letter, the example of Epaphroditus, who was a guy that was sent by the church at Philippi to Paul. He became sick, and he is so stressed out when he hears that they're stressed that he's sick, that he says, "We're going to send you back."
The Reality of Being Taken Advantage Of
Let me nail this down if I can on this giving thing and being a giver and living a life where you're meeting other people's needs, because here's the number one thing I hear: "If I live that way, people will take advantage of me." Let me tell you something: I guarantee you they'll take advantage of you. I guarantee you some people are going to rip you off. Some people are going to take advantage of you in a variety of different ways. I guarantee you.
But you know what? That's okay. Because the joy of being a giver supersedes any of these things, and you'll never experience it if you keep hedging your bets.
I hear people who are divorced all the time that say, "You know what, I'm never going to fall in love again. I may get married again." I hear this: "I may get married again, but I'm never going to love like that again." And my answer is, "Then you're never going to have any depth of relationship or love that way." Obviously the reason is because "I'll be hurt," and my response is, "Then you're never going to have any depth of relationship of love that way." You can't protect the hurt.
We live in a time where everybody's trying to save everybody from being hurt. Hurt is part of life.
When Crisis Hits Home
My daughter Sarah was born New Year's Eve. A week later, I came home from work, and Susan said, "I think there's something wrong with Sarah." And I said, "Well, what do you mean?" She said, "Well, she's just laying here, she's just laying here." I said, "God gave you a good baby, why don't you just be happy with it?" She said, "No, no, no, I think it's more serious than this."
It was Friday night, been a long week. Two hours later she said, "Something's not right." We had this little grandmotherly type lady living next door. So I go over and knock on the door, and I said, "I feel stupid here, but you know, what are the symptoms?" I said, "Well, she lays quietly," and those are the symptoms. She looks at her, and she said, "You know, guys, you ought to go to the emergency room." And I said, "I feel like a total idiot here. I'm going to take her to the emergency room to have her pronounced okay." She said, "You do whatever you want to do, Tom."
So we go to the emergency room, we get a doctor, and she's not retaining, she's losing her temperature. She can't retain her heat. So he looks at her, and he said, "You know, I think the problem is these are synthetic blankets. This is diagnosis. She needs wool blankets." Well, she's got layers of blankets. He said, "She needs wool blankets, these are synthetic blankets." And I said, "Did you graduate from the U of A?" So I said, "Just kidding, it doesn't matter." These things don't matter to me, I don't care. But they upset you so much, that's what makes it fun for me. And he said, "No, that's the problem."
So we're literally walking out the door, it's 10:30, quarter to 11 on a Friday night, and in comes our pediatrician. Just happens to be there. And she said, "What are you guys doing?" And I said, "Sarah." "So what's the problem?" I said, "Well, wrong blankets. That's the diagnosis we have so far, prescription to get over to Bed, Bath, and Beyond."
She said, "Well, that doesn't sound right. Give me Sarah." So she looks at her a little bit and prods and pokes and takes her and says, "I'll be right back." She disappears. And five minutes go by, and 10 minutes go by, and 15 minutes go by, and she doesn't come back with Sarah. She comes back and she says, "Okay, they're finishing up with Sarah." I said, "What do you mean, finishing up?" She said, "Well, we did some blood work and a spinal tap, and we're taking some x-rays. There's a problem. Something is really wrong with her. We're going to give her to you, rather than do an ambulance..."
you to her, give her to you, and have you take her down to Good Sam. I already called ahead, and they'll check her right in.
We check her in. We go up. She's in intensive care. I have had nothing but extraordinary experiences with the health care profession. I know they get beat up, just like I did a little bit in teasing, but not everybody's that way. They took Susan and me aside and said, "Listen, when you see Sarah, she's just not going to be pretty. We're going to have wires in her head and a lot of stuff. It's just going to be hard for you when you see it. I just want you to be prepared."
We walked in, and there she was, with stuff stuck all over her—this little girl, one week old. I couldn't handle it. So I'm downstairs crying. I'm not a Christian at all, and I'm crying and saying, "God, don't ever let me have another kid. I never, ever, ever want to hurt like this again."
Let me dissect the moment a little bit. At a time of great need in Susan's life, I'm outside crying. I'm not even crying for Sarah, interestingly enough. That's how much of a selfish pig I am. I'm not even saying, "Oh, you know, God, if you're there, save Sarah." I'm saying, "Don't ever let my tummy hurt like this again." That's very, very, very sad.
A week later, we took her home, and they still had no idea what happened. You know what was terrific? I became a Christian about three months later. You know what was terrific? God didn't answer that prayer. If God had answered that prayer, there would have been no Haley. I wouldn't have one of my heroes in my life.
The Human Dynamic of Pain
But see, what I was saying that's so human was, "I don't want to hurt like this." Men and women, that's the human dynamic. There's just hurt and pain. That experience we had with Sarah was duplicated yet again when she was in that traffic accident when she was in high school—brain seizures and everything else. Granted, she lived. She could have died, and I understand I can't even fathom how painful that must be.
But if I hold that in, I never have the chance to love again. I'm never freed to experience life again. Got to be a giver. Got to be a neighbor.
Who Is Your Neighbor?
Luke 10: On one occasion, a student of the law, an expert of the law—that'd be a lawyer—comes up to Jesus and says, "What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said, "What's the law say?" And he says, "Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself." And Jesus says, "Go and do it."
Now, is Jesus giving us a prescription for how to get to heaven? Yes, if you want to go it alone. If you want to go it alone, then you've got to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. That's a scary way to go, because no one ever has or ever will get there based on that. The apostle Paul never loved God with all his heart, soul, mind, strength for one second. But knock yourself out. Maybe you're the exception. Maybe you can do it for a lifetime.
Uh-oh, you've already screwed up, because you've got all these years you haven't done it already. You've got no chance, Lance, my friend. This is not a prescription for how to get to heaven. But there's a teaching moment here.
And Jesus says, "All right, that's good. That's great." The lawyer said, "Who's my neighbor?" There's the hook. Got him now. Because in that day and age, there's a couple of thoughts. When we think neighbor, we think geographic proximity. In that day and age, basically anybody who was a neighbor was thought to share righteousness. The Pharisees would see it that way—that type of belief system.
The Story of the Good Samaritan
And Jesus tells a story. In reply, Jesus said, "There's a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped his clothes. They beat him. They went away and left him half dead. A priest appeared to be going down the same road. And when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side." There he is. Boom, he goes. This is one of the holy men. Sees a guy in trouble. Boom, he goes around.
"A Levite"—that's one of the assistants to the priest—"came to the place. He saw what happened. Boom, he went around. Here's this Samaritan, who these Jews would have hated, the half-breed, would have hated him. He stops. He takes pity on him. He bandages him, pours oil in the wounds. He takes care of him, put him on the donkey, takes him to the inn, gives him to the innkeeper, pays the innkeeper, says, 'I'll be back in a short period of time. If that's not enough, I'll pay you more.'"
Jesus ultimately says to him, "Here's the answer to who your neighbor is." It's interesting, because my instinct, when you tell the story now, the kids all say, "Well, I'd call 911." That's really interesting how we think.
A Modern Parable
When Haley was six, Jerry Smith called. Jerry Smith is a very good friend of mine. The phone rings. Haley comes in and says, "Mr. Smith is on the phone." I said, "Well, tell him I can't talk to him. Tell him I'll call him back." I hear Haley down the hall, and I hear Haley say, "He'll call you back. I don't know. Dial 911."
So I called Jerry back in a few minutes. He's laughing. I said, "What are you laughing at?" And he said, "Haley said he'll call you back. I said, when? Haley said, I don't know. I said, what if I'm laying on the ground and my guts are falling out? And Haley said, dial 911." That's a perfect story to describe both of those two people right there.
Who's your neighbor? What Jesus is saying is, the neighbor's not just the person next door. In this instance, a neighbor is somebody who needs you desperately. That's your neighbor. Just love your neighbor. How? Like you love yourself.
Now, some misunderstand this, and there's some extremely poor teaching that floats around that says, "I have
to love you. There's some extremely poor teaching that floats around that says, "I have to fall in love with myself before I can love anybody else." That's not what He's saying. The assumption here is, you do love yourself. You are looking out for yourself. Your flinch is to say, "What about me? What about me? What about me?" What Jesus is saying is, now have that same attitude toward other people. You're putting other people first. That's what He's saying here.
Who's your neighbor? It's somebody who's in need. God's love is so deceptively wicked that I sometimes don't even know what it partners with. We've said this to you: In every relationship, at every moment, you're either ministering to a person or manipulating them. The easiest way to know that you are not manipulating somebody is to reach out to someone who can't possibly pay you back.
The Godfather was on the other night. I forget who the character is, and he's asked for a favor. The godfather grants him the favor and says, "That'll be okay. Someday, maybe you can do something for me." If you're helping people who have no possible way of paying you back or reciprocating, haven't you had that experience where you do a favor for somebody and they say, "Maybe someday I can do something for you?" Especially if you anticipate that going in, it's pretty hard to sort out motives. It's pretty hard to keep them pure.
Who's your neighbor? Somebody who's in need. What's the best way to minister to them? Well, it's to be there and serve them when they have no visible way to pay you back.
Being a Friend
Here's a third thing: to be a friend. I made this list—it's not an exhaustive list. But I was trying to imagine the friends that I have. Imagine, over the years, if your friend had been Jimmy Swaggart, Mark Fuhrman, Dick Morris when he was going through his thing, Susan Smith. Imagine if the guy that you hung out with and barbecued with is the one guy that's left from Al-Qaeda that they have here that they got in jail. Imagine that relationship.
Being a friend—you've got the outline. Practical benefits? Solomon offers these: "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. Pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up. But if two lie down together, they'll keep each other warm. How can one person keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."
If I take one piece of string, I can sometimes snap it. Sometimes two is hard. But if I take three and I twist them and make a cord, that's pretty hard to break. There's some physics that's involved there that just multiplies the effectiveness, the practical benefit of having someone in your life—the strength, the productivity, the warmth, the emotional benefits.
A Friend Loves at All Times
Proverbs 17:17, and I'll probably spend the rest of the time, most of the time on this: "A friend loves at all times. A brother is born for adversity." Lots of people that I know go through dark times. It's fun to read about them in a perverse way—people who have major blowouts in their life and talk about how their friends are just gone. A friend is a person who loves at all times. And adversity seems to somehow bring that together.
I'll give you an example that happened, believe it or not now, almost 12 years ago. Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas nominated for the Supreme Court. Things are moving along. It seems a slam dunk deal. The Anita Hill charges come. We're not in here to debate whether or not—we know this about that: one of them lied. We know that. One of them is a liar.
The charges come, and now the hearings are going to take place. I watched—I did not watch 30 seconds of the OJ trial. I couldn't tell you one thing about the OJ trial other than what I might have caught in a magazine. It had no interest to me. I watched every second of the Clarence Thomas hearings. And if you remember, it extended over the weekend. The only time I didn't watch is when I had to go to church and I videotaped it. They were fascinating.
John Danforth's Example of Friendship
Every moment you saw where Judge Thomas was testifying, every moment you saw him, John Danforth is right behind him—every moment, every single moment. I don't know if you remember how it ended. It ended at about 4 in the morning out in Washington with nine women who had worked side by side with Clarence Thomas, all testifying that they had never had any experience like Anita Hill, and they never had seen the slightest inkling of behavior that would reinforce any testimony that she gave.
Now, forget the testimony. It's 4 in the morning. He's been there for days. And there's Danforth sitting there through the whole thing.
When they confirmed Justice Thomas, the TV that I was watching had a split screen. On one side, they were in Pinpoint, Georgia, Clarence Thomas' hometown, in the living room of his mother's house. When they confirmed him, she was saying, "Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus." They were standing in a circle, holding hands, praying and singing hymns. Justice Thomas came out of his condo, Judge Danforth with him. Clarence Thomas' wife was there. I don't remember if Danforth's wife was there or not. I remember that it was raining.
Danforth spoke. And Clarence Thomas said just a few words. Just doesn't seem to be a guy who wants to talk a lot. And we need those. They went back in the house. And I don't know if you remember what they did, because it was confirmed the next day. They ordered in pizza and smoked cigars.
That's a pretty good friend. And you know what? I'll bet they didn't say, "Oh, he really stuck it out." I'll bet you—don't know, total speculation—I'll bet you there was a moment when Thomas said, "I don't know how I'll ever repay you for this." And I'll bet Danforth said, "And you don't need to." Don't know that. It was the most powerful exhibition of friendship I've ever seen.
You are going to have in your life
The Need for Community in Difficult Times
These hard, difficult times. And you need those people around you. Desperately need those people. That is one of the emotional benefits.
There's a personal benefit. Proverbs 27:17, it's now almost a ubiquitous verse. Every men's ministry everywhere uses it. "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens one man." The idea there is the sharp. In fact, Proverbs 27:6 is the most important verse: "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."
The Value of Loyal, Constructive Criticism
I've got to be very careful. Here's this thing, and if you can get this and receive this and embrace this, this is so valuable. It's called loyal, constructive criticism. You've got to have it.
Now, we live in an age where criticism just flies. People can't wait to bear bad news to you. I was teaching in Tucson a few years ago. I'm delivering this message, and as I'm delivering it, I'm saying to myself, "I don't know what you think." Oftentimes, I think people out there think you're invisible, like I can't see you. Well, I can see you too.
And I'm doing this, and I'm watching, and I'm saying, "These people are into this." Oftentimes when I'm speaking, and I'm not exaggerating, it's almost like out of body. I'll be doing this, but there's like me up there watching me do this. And I'm going through this, and we're moving toward the close. And I said, "Oh, man, I wish Spurgeon could get a tape of this. I wish MacArthur, I better send a copy of this to John and Chuck and RC, and all the boys need to get a copy. This is good stuff. Probably their stuff, but it's good stuff."
So I'm praying, and I said, "Let's close in prayer." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, do, amen. I look up, and I'm not exaggerating, there's two dozen people lined up. I thought, "I knew it. Come on up. Yes, my son." "Do you know you have on a brown shoe and a black shoe?" I've got two dozen people there who want to talk to me about my footwear. All of you said, "I didn't hear a word you said, because all I could do is look at your shoes and think how bad those shoes look." That's what we're processed in.
Our Culture of Criticism
You go home, and you scan. I do it, because that's how I go. I'll go to 36 to CNN, and they'll be doing crossfire or something. I'll go to Fox, I'll go to MSNBC. Holy cow, Donahue, put the guy back to sleep. I go to Donahue, and I go, and everybody, Donahue is so locked. All it is, is just literally, it's just totally yelling at each other. It's just constant yelling on all these things.
I have a guy on staff who did an interesting exercise. He took his guys to the Shepherds Conference, which is a training for shepherds, as you would expect. He's got six of these guys. He said, "Here's what I want you to do. I want you to make 25 observations today. We're going to talk about it tonight." Got the guys together. He said, "Let's go around the room. We'll start over here. Go around the room." He said, "Now, I want you to see something. You offered 150 observations." He said, "Did you notice this? Every one of them was a criticism. It was too hot. It was too cold. It wasn't loud enough. They didn't get the coffee fast enough." He said, "I didn't say give me 25 criticisms. I just said give me 25 observations. They could be the carpet is brown, the light is bright." But we tend to go right smack to the criticism.
We have been schooled that somehow our opinion is important. I mean, these guys want you to call in and give them your opinion on toxic waste disposal. That was a low point for me. The Arizona Republic, the paper I used to take, I haven't taken the poll in like five years. I finally said, "This is stupid." They had a poll one day that said 43% of Arizonans feel the state is not doing an adequate job of disposing of toxic waste. Who would impossibly have a valuable opinion on that? But see, you, you really care, so now you come into a church, or you come into a ministry, or you come into virtually any relationship, and you just want to spew your brains out, typically criticism, and maybe justify.
True Iron Sharpening Iron
But see, it's iron sharpening iron. It's men sharpening men. You need that in your life. I happen to be, I'll give you my, I got five minutes left. I'll give you my minority view, and it is that I think accountability has been elevated way beyond where it's important. Accountability, because everybody's in accountability groups doing accountability stuff with all the accountability. Accountability will never substitute for character. That's the issue.
If you're sitting there, you're some guy watching a site on the internet, I highly doubt that you're going to your prayer group tomorrow to say, "Now are you, boy guys, I found a great site last night." It just isn't going to happen. You're going to throw four guys together and say, "Be accountable?" I don't see it. But I'll tell you what holds me accountable. It's a person invited into my life to hold me to God's standards and my standards for my life. That's real accountability, in my mind. And I know that's a minority view now. Even at our church, we've got a bunch of accountability groups. But you can never, here you go, we're talking, you can't legislate morality, whatever. Yes, you can. You can't legislate character. That's our problem. You guys got no character.
Be a Lover
Here's the last thing. Be a lover. Couldn't wait to get to this. Talking about giver and talking about neighbor and friend, be a lover. Here's the first point. Marriage is honorable. Marriage should be honored. Marriage is a sacred institution invented by God.
Larry Wright used to do it all the time. "I'll never, ever, ever, ever, never, never, never, never, never, never get divorced." And people would go crazy. And he would say, "Well, that's what you said. Aren't those your vows?" I know when I married Tyler and Hay, I said, "You'll love each other for better, for worse, richer, for poorer. That richer, for poorer." Chris Rock, who I happen to think is very funny, but I've never seen him in a
The Sacredness of Marriage in a Disposable World
Chris Rock was talking about the marriage vows one day, and he said, "Why is that 'richer' in there? Who's going to say, 'Oh, you're richer. I don't want you anymore.' Nobody's going to say that." That's a pretty good point when you think about it. "I got money. Well, I'm out of here. I want the poorer part." That's what you said. This is a sacred relationship. In a world that's disposable, this is sacred.
Marriage as Meeting Practical Needs
Marriage and being a lover is to meet a practical need. Paul wrote about it: "It's not good for a man to marry. But since there's so much immorality, let each man have his own wife, each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife and vice versa." They're talking here about the sexual part of this.
A couple of things that we have convoluted. We have somehow looked at the singles as weird people with lots of hang-ups, and Paul said they're in a better condition than you are because they're free to serve, which is the whole ultimate. I say this before, and then you give me all these emails, and everybody tackles me and wants to argue about it. So I'll water it down. One of the top three reasons—I would say number one—the reason to marry is sex. That's what he says. That's what he seems to be saying to me.
Now, I know there's companionship that's involved, and I don't want to in any way minimize that. But what he's talking about here is the sexual part of it. It's a practical need, the meeting of a practical need.
The Reality of Long-Term Love
There's nothing that just fires me up more than walking through the mall and seeing two clearly old people who are in love, and you can see it physically. They're holding hands. They're touching each other. But every time I see this, the image gets shattered because I'll always go and say, "Oh man, how long have you guys been married?" And they'll say, "A week." That's what always happens to me.
Then you see the ones who've been married forever, and he's over in the newspaper, and she's over there. A guy came up this morning and said, "I got a joke. There's these three guys. They're 87 years old. One guy said, 'What are you doing this weekend?' He said, 'I'm going to get married.' He said, 'Get married? What are you doing getting married?' He said, 'Gosh, she must be a great cook. Is she a great cook?' He said, 'No, no, she doesn't cook very well.' 'Great conversationalist, just really good.' And he said, 'No, not really.' 'Good hugger, kisser?' He said, 'No, not really.' He said, 'Why would you marry?' He said, 'She can drive at night.'" I think that's very funny. And the guy was laughing because he's going in for cataract surgery.
The Commitment to Being a Good Friend and Lover
This solves a prevalent problem, which is the friendship part of this thing—that you're to be a good lover. I told Susan the other day, and I meant it with all my heart. This was before the wedding. I said, "You know, Suze, I've got to tell you something. We're in for potentially a very hard time here. Haley is an integral part of our life. Haley stirs this drink here in the house. I mean, she keeps things moving. She's the focal point when we talk about her. Sarah just got a job. Sarah could be out. You know what, babe? It's you and me. And I want you to know something. I am going to do everything I possibly can to be this person that you need. I want to be."
We were somewhere not long ago, and I was doing this. One of these ladies came up and said to Susan, "You are the luckiest girl in the world. This must be so much fun. I'll bet you guys just laugh all the time and have so much fun." She said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, he's a lot of fun. You've got to just watch him lay on the couch and pass gas. He's a riot. He's a joy. I don't remember the last time he made me laugh." I don't do that, by the way. She had me confused with somebody else.
But I said to her, "Susan, I want you to know something. Number one, you're it for me, babe. You are it. The only person on this earth that I would feel comfortable sharing anything with and everything with would be Susan. She'd be the only one that I would trust completely, entirely. But babe, we're going to have to work at this. We've got about another 30 or 40 years together, maybe. Forty's pushing it for you, but I've got another 30, 40 years."
The Key to Overflowing Relationships
In this world that's changing, one of the things that's not disposable are relationships. If you can master this idea of being a giver and a neighbor and a friend and a lover, your relationship account is going to be overflowing. You will have friends all around you.
If you're somebody who doesn't have friends, then my suggestion is make an inventory of things you want in a friend, and then see if that's you. Because probably, you're missing something in your life.
Next week, we close this series, and then we head into summer break. Father, thank You for this truth. Thank You.