Friendship Fundamentals

Building Authentic Friendships– Jesus Style! Part 4
Sunday October 16, 2005 (With thanks to John Ortberg)

Over the last two years I’ve been very impressed with the number of couples—people whom I know personally-- who have discovered each other, built a deep and enduring friendship FIRST, and then gotten married through an internet service called E Harmony (not E Bay!). It has been surprisingly successful in developing healthy relationships, I think because it majors on the fundamentals: Things like compatibility, a process of meeting and communication that is designed to help people ask meaningful questions and then exchange answers, listen, and reflect before they even have any face to face communication…
Experienced coaches will tell you that success begins with mastering the fundamentals. Vince Lombardi used to line up the Green Bay Packers in their world championship days, in the 1960s -- if ever they had a bad game, he would line them up in the locker room and hold up the pigskin and say, "Gentlemen, this is a football," and bring them back to what's fundamental.
John Wooden, great coach of the UCLA Bruins, greatest college basketball coach, probably, of our day, used to devote the first practice session of every year to teaching the world's greatest collegiate basketball players how to put on their socks.
They'd get in a little circle, and he would have them take off their shoes and socks and show them how to put them on, because he wanted to make sure they knew how to do it in a way that wouldn't give them blisters or foot problems, because if they had that, they'd be lost maybe for a key game. World's greatest coach would devote the first practice session to teaching basketball players how to put on socks!
So this morning I want to share with you some relational fundamentals from the Bible that could change your life. Researchers have found that up to 80% of the time people lose their jobs NOT because of technical incompetence, but because of relational incompetence. They don’t know how to relate to others! Follow these instructions and the likelihood of that happening in your life will go down to zero. Researchers have also found that lonely people lead shorter lives. Follow these instructions, and loneliness and isolation in your life would be wiped out. It doesn’t even take a researcher to demonstrate that divorce rates keep climbing. But master these three simple, easy to understand relational tasks and any couple will reduce the risk of divorce drastically!
So what are these three relational tasks? Let’s read them from the first chapter of James, together:
“My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…” James 1:19-20 NIV
“Everyone" -- now here he's saying it's universal, no exceptions to this one -- "let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger, for your anger does not produce God's righteousness." There they are, and it's about as simple as it can be -- one quick and two slows.
Just to make sure that we all carry this away with us, I'd like to ask you to say those three words out loud. I'll start the phrase, and then you fill in the blanks. This is what you're all going to remember, and you're all going to start practice this today, every one of is. Today all of us are going to be quick to . . . slow to…. And slow to……
So why are these three tasks so “fundamental”? Well, again, the Bible says there’s a very good reason for being slow to speak and quick to listen. Listen to this:

“A truly wise person uses few words; a person with understanding is even- tempered. Even fools are thought to be wise when they keep silent; when they keep their mouths shut they seem intelligent.” Proverbs 17:27-28 NLT

People who stay calm and “even-tempered” have real insight, real understanding. After all, even a fool will be thought wise when he or she keeps their mouth shut, the author of Proverbs writes! Even if nothing else, if you just learn how to keep your mouth shut and be slow to speak, at least you’ll avoid saying stupid things! People will think you’re wise, and you’ll get a reputation for wisdom simply by staying quiet and listening!

When I think back to the relational bloopers in my life, I can almost always trace them back to a word that I spoke too quickly, an opinion I offered without being asked, a time when I was trying to impress someone with my knowledge, or a judgment uttered impulsively and in haste. Let’s have a little mass confession here… How many of you have ever spoken too quickly or rashly or foolishly and then regretted it... raise your hands…

You see, that happens to all of us when we talk too much. But here’s the interesting thing: very rarely does listening lead to profound regret! Very rarely do I find myself thinking, why did I carefully pay attention to that other person? Why in a rash moment was I so patient and empathic? Why was I discerning what was going on in that person's heart? What was I thinking?
Listening does not lead to regret. In fact, when I follow these three simple instructions from the Bible, it communicates a very powerful message to whatever person I'm listening to. It says you're important to me. You have something worth saying.
When I follow James' wisdom in relationships, it makes community and intimacy possible. When I don't, when I violate any one of these three, it violates community. It severs connectedness. It destroys intimacy.
So in the time that remains, we're just going to walk through these three commands.

1. Be slow to speak…

The sum and substance of this first direction is don’t talk too much! Don’t talk without thinking, don’t speak impulsively and foolishly. Don’t run off at the mouth. Just assess yourself. Of course, one of our problem s may be that we’re not even aware this is a problem… so to help you assess yourself, here’s a little talking assessment from the book of Ecclesiastes—let’s read it together:

“Words from a wise man’s mouth are gracious, but a fool is consumed by his own lips…and the fool multiplies words.” Ecclesiastes 10:12, 14 NIV

Number one: are you being gracious with your words? Gracious conversations look like the ones Jesus had with people like the woman at the well in John 4…where Jesus asked questions, really listened for her response, and answered her concerns rather than just waiting for her to finish so that he could get on to the next thing he wanted to say! Are you having conversations like that?
Or are you so consumed by your own lips, in the words of the writer of Ecclesiastes, that you don’t even notice that your listener's eyes have glazed over into a dull, vacant, focus less stare. Their pupils are fixed and dilated…And you’re beginning to find yourself physically restraining people to prevent their walking away while you're speaking. If you notice that there's just this stream of conversation going on, and people are attempting to leave and you have to hold them there, it could be you're talking too much. You’re multiplying words, like the fool.
Well, again, the Bible has wonderfully simple and sage advice on how to overcome that problem; and here it is—let’s read it together: “Don’t talk too much, for it fosters sin. Be sensible and turn off the flow!” Proverbs 10:19 NLT
Turn off the flow! Just stop speaking. Inhale. Let there be silence for a moment. Ask yourself the question, “When was the last time I heard a voice in this conversation other than my own?”
About a year ago I noticed that people were beginning to shut down on me in conversation… and I realized that it was because I was frequently interrupting them. I was finishing their sentences, hurrying them on so that I could make my point, or sometimes just talking over them. In a moment of reflection and prayer, I really felt convicted by the Lord that my conversational skills were becoming as driven as my driving in traffic! The Lord impressed on me that I needed to simply SLOW DOWN and practice waiting on the other person, listening to what they have to say.
I did this on Friday with a co-worker at CLS who asked me about the family—how they were doing. I hadn’t seen him in a while, so I went on and on about our vacation… And then I noticed a bit of pain on his face. So I stopped and asked him how he and his family were doing…and you know what he said? “Not so good…” And then I just listened. No interruptions. No advice giving. I just listened as intently as I could. You know what he said afterwards? Thank you for asking and listening!
Some of us need to ask the question that may cut deeply—but believe me, it’s a question worth asking: What’s going on in my heart that’s leading me to talk too much? Is it an expression of fear, anxiety, or loneliness? Is it an expression of the desire in my heart to control, dominate and impress other people with my words? And is my talking helping the problem, or driving people away?
You know what the Bible says is often at the root of talking too much? Lack of trust. Fear. You and I talk too much because we have a hard time trusting God. We have a hard time believing that God can handle our particular situation, so we try to control or impress or dominate or SPIN with our words. And it all boils down to the issue of trust.
That’s why Peter pointed out a different way in the example of Jesus Christ. Remembering those awful days when Jesus was unjustly tried, punished, abused and crucified, this is what Peter came to realize:“When they hurled their insults at Jesus, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” I Peter 2:23 NIV
Jesus shows us a different way—and it begins with a heart that, like his, TRUSTS GOD for the outcome. A heart that trusts in the goodness of God, and that he will do what is best for us so that we don’t have to try and control and dominate and SPIN the situation with our own words. A heart like Jesus’ that trusts in God even when the situation is unjust and seems to beg for our words. (Example: Jonathan Edwards and his accusers)
The Second bit of advice I want to share with you from James is this: 2. Be quick to listen… And the idea here is, be EAGER to listen. Get good at it. Become a world class listener!

The Bible says if you’re serious about following God, devote yourself to listening. Be a great listenener because God himself is a great listener. Listening is probably the biggest part of God’s job, and it runs throughout the whole Bible. God says, for example, in the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament: Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “…before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.” Isaiah 65:24 NIV

God, the Creator of the universe, who knows everything, is never too busy, never too preoccupied, never too bored to listen to our smallest request or our most petty complaints. The God of the Bible, front to back, is the God who listens. So he says to all who want to devote themselves to him,” Be like me." Listen. It's an act of love and community.

So if you want to become a world class listener, how do you do it? Listen like Jesus did… God gave us a living, flesh and blood example of how we can become like him-- world class listeners-- in the person of Jesus Christ.

And one of the first things you notice about Jesus, the world class listener, is that he looked at the people he was listening to! Jesus was a master at this. In the 9th chapter of John, there’s a story about a man, blind from birth, whom Jesus healed. And in telling this story, John keeps playing with this word “to see”, because Jesus saw like no one has ever seen!

At the beginning of the story he says, as Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. He saw somebody that other people didn't notice because this guy was blind. He just begged.
Jesus calls him aside and looks at him, and Jesus restores his sight. He heals him. Here's a real interesting part of this story. Later on John says that the man returns to the neighborhood where he begged. He'd been blind from birth, so he'd probably been begging on the same corner maybe thirty or forty or fifty years.
John says, "The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "is this not the man who used to sit and beg?' Some were saying, "it is he.' Others were saying, "No, but it's someone like him.'"
Here's what's going on. This blind man had been with these people in this neighborhood every day for thirty or forty or fifty years, but they paid him so little attention that now they couldn't even tell if it was the same guy or not. They never noticed him. He was just like part of the scenery. Nobody ever really looked at him.
But not Jesus. Jesus noticed him. Jesus looked at him. Jesus saw him, and Jesus does this all the time.
Another character in the Gospel of Mark comes up to Jesus, and there's this wonderful phrase, … Jesus looked at the rich young man and loved him.” Mark 10:21 NIV This guy comes up to Jesus and Jesus looks. He really looks at him, and his heart is moved with compassion and he finds himself filled with love towards this person because he stopped and he looked at him.

So let me ask you a question: How do you do at this one? When was the last time you really looked at someone—a friend, a spouse, a child full in the face, and you saw what makes their eyes light up? What makes their hearts leap for joy and their faces shine? What makes their shoulders sag in defeat? Some of us go through whole days with our eyes open never really seeing anybody all day long. But Jesus, who was a world class listener, saw people that nobody else noticed. That’s what world class listeners do.

Here’s another thing listeners do: They ask questions. That’s exactly what Jesus did, time and again, throughout the Gospels. Jesus asked questions. He says to one person, "What do you want?" He says to somebody else, "Who do the people say that I am?" Other questions -- "What does the law say?" "What were you arguing about?" "Where is your husband?" he asks of one woman. "Why do you call me good?" he asks of somebody else.
Then he would wait, and he would really listen. You go through Jesus' life. He asks questions of Roman army officers and rabbis and prostitutes and disciples, of politicians and mothers and lawyers, and then he would just stop. He was genuinely interested in what people would say. This is extraordinary. This is Jesus, the smartest guy that ever lived, just a fountain of wisdom.
You know, if I had anywhere near the kind of wisdom that Jesus had, I think I'd just want to go around spouting it off all day long.
But Jesus, the wisest man who ever lived, over and over again in relationships as he meets people, he doesn't start with what he knows. He begins by asking them a question. He is genuinely interested in their life, in their mind, in their heart, in what they think, in how they feel, and so he asks them a question, and then he is silent. He looks at them and he listens to them.
People flocked around him. He couldn't get away from people because not only was he the wisest person they'd ever known, not only was he powerful, he was genuinely interested in them, like no one had ever been in their whole life, people that nobody else noticed, the blind, the poor, the sinful.
You can do this. You can look at people, and you can start asking questions for folks that you know. What gives you joy? What are you learning these days? Casual questions for casual acquaintances -- Tell me about your work. Deeper questions for deeper friends -- How's your heart? How's your soul? And be interested in what they say.
You know what else world class listeners do? They offer appropriate touch. They know that sometimes a hand on the shoulder of another person or an embrace for a cherished friend can communicate far more than a word ever could.
People need to be touched. Gary Smalley was speaking at a marriage seminar one time. He cited a study done by a researcher at UCLA who found that human beings' physical and emotional health is enhanced; their lives are prolonged if they experience eight to ten meaningful touches a day.
Of course, it has to be done appropriately—and there are good boundaries and bad as we talked about last week. But again, Jesus Christ sets the standard for safe and meaningful and life changing touch! On of the most moving stories in the Bible is when a leper came to Jesus one day. This leper was unclean, and it was against the law for a clean person like Jesus to touch the leper. It couldn’t be done. But Jesus decides to do something extraordinary in healing this leper. He could have just said the word from a safe distance and the guy would have been healed. But look what happens:
A man with leprosy came to him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Mark 1:40-42 NIV

Why did Jesus do that? It's because Jesus understands the power of touch, and he knows when this man, who thinks of himself as unclean, this man, who has not been touched by a clean person for his whole life, as long as he's had leprosy, this man will never forget that touch as long as lives. He will feel the touch of Jesus' hand on his face until he dies. Touch has the kind of power.
One day they brought a bunch of children to Jesus. Some parents brought kids, and Jesus' disciples said to them,” He’s a busy guy. He's important. He's got things to do, things to say. He doesn't have time for this. Take them away."
Jesus rebuked his disciples and he said, "Let the little children come to me." Then it says in this beautiful line, and Jesus took the children in his arms, put his hands on them, and blessed them.” Mark 10:16 NIV
If you have a child in your relational world, when was the last time you really stopped and looked that child full in the face? When was the last time you put down the newspaper, or the PDA, or turned off the TV and really listened—and then took that child in your arms and blessed them? It'll make an enormous difference in the life of that child if you listen, really listen to that child -- not twenty-four hours a day, not as much as the child wants, because that would not be possible or sane, or healthy… But if you just stop and listen like Jesus did….
If a child on a regular basis has an adult who looks at them and puts down whatever they're doing and listens with undivided attention and holds them and blesses them, I'll guarantee you, when that child grows up, that child will know that he or she is loved.
You can do that. When you listen, when you look, when you give undivided attention, when you give appropriate touch, take somebody's hand, embrace a friend, you give life to people. You're a world-class listener.
The last piece of relational wisdom that James talks about is this: 3. Be slow to anger… Let’s read the reason for this together:
“… For man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” James 1:20 NIV

Part of the Bible’s great wisdom is that these three simple instructions go together. If you observe the first two, you’ll come out ok on number three. If you and I carefully cultivate the habit of listening, and if we cultivate the habit of speaking carefully and with restraint—if we’re quick to listen and slow to speak—then we’ll almost automatically be slow to anger. It will just happen.

On the other hand, if we fail to listen well, if we don’t take the time to understand people, if we try to dominate them with our words and we talk too much and say rash things, we’ll probably get angry a lot!

Does that mean we should NEVER get angry? NO—in fact, in Ephesians 4 the Bible says “Be angry, BUT DO NOT SIN.” I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll have the opportunity to practice “being slow to anger” sometime this week—at a stoplight, with your child’s teacher, a co-worker, whatever… The question is how to manage that anger so that you don’t destroy relationships…

And here again, Jesus sets the standard..So FORGIVE, just like Jesus. Jesus was a world-class forgiver. In fact, he stands without equal in the annals of history. Listen what he said when they were torturing him to death:
…There they crucified Jesus, along with he criminals– one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:33 NIV

You know, let’s be real. These people knew exactly what they were doing. They were paid professionals and they did their job relentlessly well. But Jesus extended extraordinary grace and understanding to them that released him and them from a lifetime of bitterness and regret. Jesus did that all the time. After the disciples, his best friends, had betrayed him by deserting him to face death alone, and Jesus had risen from the dead, he appeared to them and then took them all out for breakfast! And with not a word about their betrayal. He forgave them in word and deed, and strengthened their friendships, their community and their love for each other.

The most devastating thing about words said in anger is that they can’t be unsaid. You can’t press the unsend button. Once you let them fly, they will hit their target and wound deeply. And the damage you and I will have to undo as a result—no matter how justified we felt when we let loose those words—the damage we will have to undo may take as long or longer to undo than it did to build the friendship in the first place.

So Jesus gives us extraordinary wisdom on how to be slow to anger—how not to get to the point where you let loose something that you’ll regret. Let’s read what he says:
Jesus said, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24 NIV

Some of you are here today, and you need to do exactly what Jesus says before you say something that will cause damage that will take a lot of painful effort to undo.

And some of you are here today and Jesus is telling you that you need to undo the damage that’s been done. Life is too short, and intimacy and community are too precious for you to continue to dwell in unforgiveness and bitterness. There’s somebody that you’ve hurt with your words… And you know that you need to go back to them and say “I know that I just let it fly. I didn’t take the time to listen or understand. I didn’t observe the relational fundamentals and it’s done damage to you and damage to me and I just want to say I’m sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me. I want to put our relationship back on the right track.”

You and I can do this. We can resolve when we get angry not to flip into our default mode and let angry words fly. We can slow down, take the time to listen and understand, before we speak. We can resolve to repair relational damage by approaching the people that we’ve hurt—and even if they’re not cooperative at this point, we can still take the first step to be reconciled and release ourselves from the bitterness chewing us up on the inside.

And if you’re wondering where to start, take a cue from Jesus. Mastery of these three friendship fundamentals won’t begin with the notes you took this morning… look 18 inches down at your heart, and listen to what Jesus says:
Jesus said, “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings up good things out of the good stored up in him…” Matthew 12:34b-35 NIV
So let me close with this question: What’s in YOUR heart? Or better yet, WHO is in your heart? Is it just you, struggling to get it right—or have you invited Jesus Christ to fill that hole that only he can fill??

You see, if you’ve listened this morning and found yourself saying, “YES! I want to become a world class listener. I want to learn how to really look at people and be concerned about their answers and offer meaningful and appropriate touch, and embrace when embracing is needed… I want to repair relational damage and avoid tanking relationships that I most want to love and build into… I want authentic life-changing relationships, and I need a power beyond myself to make these things happen on a consistent basis”, Then I have good news for you:

YOU ALREADY HAVE A FRIEND—HIS NAME IS JESUS CHRIST…and all he is waiting for is your invitation, your act of surrender from your heart to his ways, his life, and his power to help you build friendships that will be rich and life-changing.