Rick Warren - Forming Healthy Relationships—Part One

Hello, everybody, Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is

the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Hey, We're so

glad you're here with us today. We are continuing in

a series called Talking about Stuff That Matters Now. In

this series, Rick looks into the scriptures and he's unpacking

what it means to live in community, have real conversation

about what matters most, and face discouragement with courage and faith.

It's honest, hopeful. So stay tuned. You won't want to

miss a second. And now here's part one of a

message called forming healthy Friendships.

You know, in spite of the fact that today the

world is more connected by technology than ever before, we

are far more connected than previous generations, there is an

epidemic of loneliness in our world. I don't know if

you've been reading about it' sean. I probably read twenty

thirty forty articles this week on the epidemic of loneliness

all around the world. The fact that over half of America,

in poll after pol has said I'm lonely. And these

are at every age and stage of life. Little children say,

great school kids say, I'm lonely, teenagers say, I'm lonely.

Young adult SAM lonely, middle aged married couple say I'm lonely.

Elderly people SAM lonely. Over half of Americans at every

single stage and age of life, say I'm lonely. That's

an epidemic. We've never had those numbers ever in the

history of the United States of America. It's worse than

some other countries. In Britain, the number of British citizens

who say I'm lonely has now risen to sixty eight percent.

It's such an epidemic that the Prime Minister of England

last year appointed a new cabinet officer called the Minister

of Loneliness. I'm not making this up. They have a

cabinet Minister for loneliness because sixty eight percent of the

Brits say I'm lonely, and we find this in country

after country after country. I was talking to our high

school pastor Jason this week. He told me he was

recently at a high school a student camp, and they

asked kids who were lonely to stand up, maybe a

thousand kids at this camp, and he said about eighty

percent of the kids stood up, saying I experience loneliness.

On a regular basis. Part of it is social media itself.

Rather than going out on a Saturday night, you stay

home and you look at your your screen on what

everybody else is doing, and you talk about it, and

there's this fear of missing out fomo, fear of missing out.

That's a plaguing generation Z, which is the first generation

to actually grow up without having screens, you know, phones

all of the time. Now, the Bible has a lot

to say about loneliness. In fact, it starts in the

first couple chapters when God says it is not good

for man to be alone. So the first thing God

said was not good about the earth. God hates loneliness, loneliness.

If you have loneliness in your life, that is not

part of God's plan for your life. We were made

in the image of God, which means we're relational. And

because we're relational, human beings are social creatures. We're made

to be together. We're better together. We're not made to

be solitary. And so the Bible has a lot to say.

I went through all of the scriptures this week that

deal with loneliness, with friendship, friendliness. There are literally hundreds

and hundreds and hundreds of verses in the Bible about

the importance of you having friends. You need them not

just for your happiness, you need them for your health.

Studies have shown that the fewer friends you have, the

sooner you're more likely to die. That it is unhealthy

for you to not have healthy friendships in your life.

So God made us for relationships, and we're going to

look today this weekend at a ton, literally a ton

of Bible verses on how to form healthy relationships. Now,

there are a lot of different kinds of friendships, but

specifically I would categorize a couple being close friendships and

casual friendships. If you want to write this on your outline,

casual friends, Okay, casual friends in your life may be

the result of my circumstances when I have you know,

meet people at work, or I meet people at school,

or I meet people in a neighborhood, or I meet

people you know in some sports, you know, kids in soccer,

what like that. Those are typically casual relationships because they're

just people that you happen to bump been to, you

run into. Those are the casual relationships that come as

a result of circumstances. But your closest friends should not

be the result of circumstance. They should be the result

of choices, my choices, not my circumstances, but my choices.

Your close friends should not be accidental. You should choose

them wisely, because you can't be close to everybody. Now.

The fact is, the closer I am to people in

my life, and the closer people are to me in

my life, the greater the impact. The greater the influence

they're going to have on my life. The people who

are closest to you are obviously going to influence your

life a whole lot more than the people who are

simply casual acquaintances. Now, if that's true, and the people

who are closest to you better be influencing you for

good and for God, because it's dangerous. So I should

choose my closest friends wisely. Now, the Bible has a

lot to say about this. There on your outline, I

just put one verse Proverbs chapter twelve, verse twenty six

says this, A righteous person is cautious in friendship. I mean,

you're choosy, you're selective. You don't just arbitraries. Anybody can

be close to me. A righteous person is cautious in

friendship because the ways of evil people can lead them

to do wrong. Now, what I want us to look

at this weekend is forming healthy relationships. And I want

us to do a couple of things. I want us

to look at the kind of people you should not choose,

because the Bible has a lot to say about that

kind of people should not be your closest friends. And

then look at the kind of qualities you should look

for in your closest friends. And then I want to

give you some building blocks, the eight or zero building

blocks of how do you build healthy, lifelong friendship satisfying

friendships in life. Now assisting me is going to be

Pastor Kurt Johnston. And Kurt talk about four different circles.

He says, you know, on the outer circle, or your

casual friends, there's a that's your biggest circle, so there's

room for a lot of them. Now, you don't spend

a lot of time with these people, but they're your

casual friends. But you don't see him that much, so

there's a limited influence you on them and them on

you a little bit. In in the next circle, in

is what he calls your close friends, and there's not

as much room for as many because you can't be

a close friend to everybody, and so you don't have

as many in that circle. But you have more time

spent together with your close friends, and there is increased

influence you on them and them on you. But Dinny

said there's an inner circle that's right around you that

he calls your core friends. I'd never heard this far,

but I like this phrase, your core friends. And you

only have room for a handful of those three, four,

five or so of your core friends. You get lots

of time spent together. There's high influence on each other

out while I like Kurt's circles. This is exactly what

Jesus did. Jesus loved everybody. He fed the five thousand,

he trained one hundred and twenty, He discipled twelve, he

mentored three. I'll say it again, Jesus loved everybody. There

was nobody Jesus didn't love. He fed the five thousand,

he trained one hundred and twenty, he discipled twelve, he

mentored three. Only Peter, James and John got to go

in the Garden of Casemone. Only Peter, James and John

got to go up on the Mount of Transfiguration. Only Peter,

James and John got to see Jesus heal Peter's mother

in law. Was Jesus playing favorites? Yes he was. He

was spending the maximum amount of time with those who

would bear the maximum responsibility. Later in the Book of Galatians,

Paul says Peter, James and John. He calls them different James,

but Peter, James, John the pillars of the church. Obviously

it worked. He invested the maximum time with the people

who bear the maximum responsibility. He had the greatest impact

on the people he spent the most time with, and

they ended up being leaders. So you need to go

home and make this circle list because some of you

are stressed out because you have too many vdps and

you don't have enough VIPs in your life. You know

the difference. Vps are very inspirational people. VIPs very inspiration.

Vdps are very draining people. Now, don't look at them.

Be cool. When you have more vdps, then you have

VIPs in your life. That's called stress. Friend, when you

have more draining people in your life, and if the

draining people are the closest, guess what you're You're out

of energy. You're out of gas. So while this is

a message that I want to teach parents how to

help their kids have healthy relationships, all you big grown

up kids need this too. And you need to go home,

and you need to be more intentional about your friendships.

And you might go home and say who's in my

casual circle and write their names in, and who's in

my close circle, and who's in my core? And should

they be there? Should somebody else be in my core.

If you'll do this, you will find your fulfillment level

going up in your stress level going down, because my

guess is you've probably got too many of the wrong

people in the wrong circle. So church is going to

help me with this message. Now, first I want us

to look at what the Bible says you're not to

choose as close friends. Who are you to not choose?

Because the Bible says a righteous person is cautious in

friendship because they can influence you if they're really close.

And God says that there's some people that you should avoid.

Now this is just a partial list. I'm only going

to give you five or six people. There are others.

You could go through the Book of Proverbs and get

all the rest of them. But let me just give

you five or six people who should not be your

closest friends according to what God says. Now, before I

say that, would you agree that the wrong people can

pull you down? If I'm standing here on this stage

and you're standing down there, is it easier for me

to pull you up or for you to pull me down?

There's no question. Okay, it's the law gravity. It's easier

for you to pull me down than to pull you up.

This is why I don't believe in missionary dating. You know, well,

I'm going to bring him to the Lord through our

dating life. I'm sure that's what he's thinking, Praise the Lord.

So have any of you ever seen anybody messed up

by the wrong friends? Yeah? Yeah, of course you have,

so I don't have to make this point to you.

You know, it's true that there's some people you shouldn't

have as you're close friends. Look up here on the screen.

Proverbs eighteen twenty four says this, these are friends who

destroy each other. Have you ever seen a couple of

friends destroy each other? Yeah? They weren't real friends. They

were competing with each other, they were fighting with each other,

they were nagging at each other. They were detrimental to

each other, they were pulling each other down. Those aren't

real friends. So let me just give you a partial

list of five or six kinds of people should not

be your closest friends. Number one, We're not going to

spend a lot of time on these because I want

to get to the positive stuff. Number one. People who

like to argue. Really, that's what the Bible says. People

who like to argue should not be your closest friends.

Have you noticed that some people love conflict. They get

energized by it. Fighting makes them come alive. It's like

they're not even alive unless they're in the middle of

a fight, and they're always against something. There's that kind

of warrior spirit of They just like to fight. And wherever

they go they cause conflict. They're irritating, they're agitating. God says,

you don't hang out with those kind of people. Proverbs

twenty verse three. Any fool can start arguments. The honorable

thing is to stay out of them. Circle the words

stay out. Somebody starts getting in an argument in your office,

walk away says the wise thing the honorable. The wise

thing is to stay out of them. Number two. Here's

another one. This is really gonna be touchy. People who gossip, Well,

they just went all my friends. You say, you know

you're thinking that people who gossip. Did you know that

God hates gossips. He hates gossip. He hates gossiping. He

says it's detrimental. He says the gossiper is the friend

to the sabatoo. They sabotage relationships. Gossips are destructive, and

the Bible judges the sin of gossip very, very harshly.

What is gossip? All right, let me give you a definition.

Gossip is sharing information when you're neither part of the

problem nor part of the solution. Uh oh, sharing damaging

information when you're neither part of the problem nor part

of the solution. And for Christians, the worst part is

when we hide gossip as a prayer request, I'd like

for you to pray about this. What I heard about

so and so it's been on my heart to pray

about this. Well, don't use prayer as an excuse to gossip.

The Bible says in Proverbs twenty verse nineteen, stay away

from gossips. They can't keep a secret and they tell everything.

So stay away from people who like to argue, stay

away from people who gossip. Number three, you're just stay

away and not have his closest friends. People who flatter others.

People who flatter others. Now, what is flattery? Flattery is

false praise. Flattery is insincere compliments. Flattery is the person

who kisses up to the boss at work and then

behind them says the exact opposite about that boss. They schmooze.

They they you know, they lay it on. They're kissing up.

They're hypocritically appealing to ego. And when you see people flattering,

whether it's a girl or a guy on the school

campus kissing up to the most popular person, or whether

it's an adult doing it in an office situation or

a sales situation, the Bible says you need to run

the opposite way, stay away from flatterers. Proverbs twenty nine,

verse five says this flattery is a trap. Evil people

get caught in it, but good people avoid it and

are free. I don't have time to go into this,

but the Bible says that people who flatter you actually

hate you. That flattery is disguised hatred, and they'll say

one thing to your face. Well, look at these verses.

You ever met any people like this? Here's a verse

Proverbs sixty four, verse two. They are friendly to my face,

but they curse me in their hearts, and they delight

in telling lies about me. Their entire reality shows built

on that verse where they say something to your face

and flatter you, Oh, you look so great. And then

or here's another one. Look at this verse Psalm one

O nine, verse five. For being friendly and kind, they

paid me back with meanness and hatred. Mean girls, mean boys.

This happens on every campus, but it happens in adulthood.

The Bible says, stay away from people who flatter you.

Number four. You should stay away and not have as

your closest friends people who can't control their temper. The

Bible has a lot to say about the rajaholic, the rajiaholic.

Now you could be two different ways to express rage.

Be a mute and be a martyr, or be a

manic and be a you know, Mount Vesuvius. Everybody's either

a skunk or a turtle. And when you get angry,

turtles pull into a shell and pour me and they

you know, everybody hates me, nobody loves me. I'm gonna

go eat worms and you have a pity party and

you invite me myself and eye. Or you can be

Mount Vesuvius, or you can be a skunk. When a

skunk is upset, they let everybody know it and they

stink up the whole place. The Bible says, people who

can't control their temper they should not be your closest friends. Okay,

they're hot headed, you know short few that. They they're volatile,

they're rash, they blow up quickly, they're easily upset. Here's

what the Bible says, Parbus twenty two, verse twenty four

and twenty five. Don't make friends with hot tempered people

with a hot tempered person. Don't associate with anyone easily angered.

They get ticked off at everything. You have to walk

on eggshells around them. Or don't associate with those who

are easily angered, or you'll learn to be like them

and not able to change. Anger, like a lot of

other emotions, is contagious. Loneliness is contagious, Depression is contagious.

A lot of things are could be a lot of

emotions are contagious. He said. If you hang the people

you hang out with, that's what you're going to become light.

Now you say, well, I don't know anybody hot tempered people.

Are you listening to talk radio because they're all on that.

Are you watching talk TV? There are some shows you

if you find your blood pressure rising, you just shouldn't

listen to. All they're doing is feeding rage inside you.

Here's one people who steal or shoplift. Now, I don't

know many adults who know people who are shoplifting, but

a lot of teenagers know teenagers who are shoplifting. But

there are people who are stealing their office blind and

everybody knows it. Thieves, the Bible says, are self centered,

and if they steal from others, you know what they'll

steal from you, So you don't want them to be

your closest friend. People who steal or shoplift, look at

this verse up here on the screen, Proverbs one, verses

thirteen to fifteen. This is what they say. They say,

Come on, let's take all kinds of valuable things. Okay,

you know all the resources at the office. Let's fill

our houses with stolen goods. Come join us. We'll share

the stolen goods. But do not go along with them,

and don't do not do what they do this is,

you know, just stay away from most people. Wow.

Thanks Pastor Rick for such an amazing message today.

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