Rick Warren - How to Connect with People—Part One

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the broadcast ministry of

Pastor Rick Warren. Today we continue in the series Essentials

for Living. In these lessons, Pastor Rick shares the power

you need to live on, the principles you need to

live by, and the purpose you need to live for

so that you're truly living and not just existing. First,

do you ever feel like you've lost your spark your joy?

In just a few moments, We're going to tell you

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the word hope to eight hundred six hundred five thousand

and four to find out more. Right now, here's Pastor

Rick Warren with part one of a message called how

to Connect with People.

Have you ever been in one of those conversations where

you just weren't connecting. You're doing everything you can to

make sense, and no matter how hard you try, you're

just not getting through to that person. You may be

talking to a teenager and they think you're from another planet.

You may be talking to a child.

You may be talking to your husband or wife, or

an employee, but for one reason or another, it just

isn't connecting. One of the deepest needs that you have

in life is the need to be understood. We all

desperately need to feel that somebody understands us, that somebody

can feel what we're feeling and can think what we're thinking.

We all need people who connect with us. And if

you don't ever have anybody in your life that you

feel connected to like that, it has all kinds of

negative effects. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, this

California Department of Health mental study. It's so profound I

want to mention it again. They discovered that if you're

disconnected from other people, there's nobody in your life that

you really feel understands you, you are two to three

times more likely to die from an early death, You

are four times more likely to suffer from emotional burnout,

you are five times more likely to suffer clinical depression,

and you are ten times more likely to be hospitalized

for an emotional or mental disorder. Human connections are good medicine.

You need them. They're not just something that's nice to

have in your life. You need them physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

You need people who understand you, who relate to you,

and who can connect to you. Now, last week we

talked in this series about the importance of being spiritually

connected to a church family. But even if you are

connected to a church family, if you don't know how

to connect to people one on one, you can still

feel detached. You can feel still feel disconnected. So today

Tom and I are going to do a mess. It's

called how to really connect with people, how to connect

with them on the deepest level. Now, this is one

of life's most important skills, learning how to really connect

with people on a heart to heart, soul the soul

of fellowship level. Unfortunately, nobody ever teaches us how to

do this. It certainly isn't taught in school how to

relate interpersonally.

You know, you learn.

Science and geography and math and history and language in school,

but nobody teaches you really how to connect with people.

And if you don't know how to connect with people,

you're not going very far in life.

It's just that simple. You may be brilliant in some.

Subject, but if you don't know how to connect with people,

you're just not going to go very far in life.

It is the most basic skill you need how to

deal and how to relate with other people. Now, these

six principles that we're going to share today, I'm very

excited about because every one of you in this room

need this material. Doesn't matter what age, your stage in

life you are in. If you were a parent and

you want to know how to better connect with your children,

you're going to use these principles. If you are engaged

or married and you want to know how to better

relate to that other person that spouse, you can use

these principles. If you are a teacher, or an employer

or an employee, no matter who you are, if you

need to get close to anybody in life, you need

these principles. In fact, these would be good rules for

a small group, and we have over two thousand small

groups that saddle back. These would be guidelines for how

you should react and relate in a small group.

Now, to get the most out of today's message, at the.

Start, I want you to think of somebody that you

would like to be closer to. Think of somebody that

you would really like to connect on a deeper level

with than you're connecting with them right now. In fact,

in order to make this specific, I want you to

write down their initials somewhere on your.

Now.

I don't see any of you doing this, so I'm

going to just wait right now. If you can't think

of somebody you really need this message, Believe me, you

can't think of anybody you'd rather be closer to. You

need this message, So right, write their initials or write

them backwards. Nobody's going to look at it anyway. Who

would you like to get closer to? Who would you

like to have a deeper connection with? Some of you,

it needs to be somebody you need to reconnect with,

maybe reconnect with a child, or reconnect with a parent,

or reconnect with a former friend. And somebody who's been

in your life very important. You see, it's possible to

get disconnected too once you have been connected. A lot

of marriages do this, many married. Most marriages start off

close and connected, but somehow, over time they just get

disconnected and it's hard to get reconnected.

What do you do?

The first key to connecting is this, be courageous. You

must be courageous and take the initiative. What I mean

is you've got to be willing to take the first step.

You don't wait on somebody else to connect with you.

You must take the initiative to connect with them. Now,

this often takes courage. Why because it's fear that disconnects

human beings. When we are full of fear and anxiety,

we don't get close to each other. In fact, we

back off of each other. We're afraid of what We're

afraid of being rejected. We're afraid of being manipulated. We're

afraid of being vulnerable. We're afraid of being hurt. We're

afraid of being used. And all of these fears cause

us to be disconnected in life. Now, this fear is

as old as mankind. When Adam and Eve sinned and

God came looking for Adam, Adam said, I was afraid,

and I hid, And people have been doing that ever since.

We are afraid, and so we hide, We hide our

true selves. We don't let people know what we're really like.

We don't let them see the inside of us. Why

because if we let people know what we're really liking,

they don't like it. We're up a creek without a paddle.

It's tough luck. I mean, why am I afraid? To

tell you who I am, because if I tell you

who I am and you don't like me, I'm in

for it. I have no alternative. And so we wear

masks and we pretend. And fear does three terrible things

to relationships. Number One, it makes us defensive. We're afraid

to reveal ourselves and we defend ourselves, and when people

point out weaknesses, we just retaliate and we defend ourselves.

Number Two, our fears keep us distant. We don't let

people get close to us. We want to withdraw, we

want to pull back. We want to hide our emotions.

We don't want to let people. We don't want to

be open and honest, but we become defensive and distant.

And Third, our fears make us demanding. Whenever we're insecure,

the more insecure we are, the more we try to

control things. And so we try to have the last

word in a relationship and we try to dominate and

we try to control. And it is always a symptom

a fear of insecurity. Now, where do you get the confidence,

the courage to take the first step in connecting with someone,

to going to a deeper level of intimacy. Where do

you get that kind of courage. You get it from

God's Spirit in your life. Look at what the Bible

says two Timothy one, p. Seven For the Holy Spirit,

God's gift does not want you to be afraid of people,

but to be wise and strong, that's courageous, and to

love them and enjoy being with them. How do you

know when you're filled with God's spirit.

Simple. One of the ways is you're more courageous in

your relationships.

You love people, you enjoy being with them, You're not

afraid of them because God's Spirit is in your life.

Now.

The Bible says God is love, and the Bible says

love casts out all fear. So when the more of

God you have in your life, the less a fear

you're going to have in your life because God is

love and love casts out fear. So the starting point

in connecting with anybody is to pause and praise, say God,

give me the courage to take the first step. Some

of you need to do that this week with a

person you need to connect with, give me the courage

to take the first step, to take the initiative. The

second key to connecting is to be considerate, to be

considerate of their needs in other words, if you want

to connect with people, you have to start with their needs,

not your own. You have to start with their hurts,

not your own. You have to start with what they want,

not what you want.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will be

back in just a moment with the rest of today's lesson.

You can sign up for Pastor Rick's free email devotional

at pastorick dot com. That's pastorick dot com.

Do you desire more of God he desires more of you?

Let me ask you this, how's your relationship with God

right now? Maybe you're walking closely with him and do

you feel energized and alive or maybe you feel disconnected

like you're just going through the motions. Pastor Rick says,

if you want to stake an and even deepen your

relationship with God, you need to be intentional. That's why

every year Pastor Ric personally goes through a spiritual renewal study,

and now he's made that very same study available to you.

It's called Going Deeper with God, a personal renewal retreat.

In this very special resource, Pastor Wric will personally lead

you on a spiritual journey that brings you closer to God. Together,

you'll go through a series of audio lessons, and after

each session you'll take a little time to reflect and

complete exercises in the Companion workbook. Through this retreat, you'll

experience a renewal of life within you. God will restore

your joy. As he renews, refreshes, invigorates, and revives your

spiritual life, You'll never be the same again. Will send

you going deeper with God. A personal renewal retreat as

our way of saying thanks when you give a gift

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Now let's get back to today's lesson. Here on Pastor

Rick's Daily Hope.

The Bible says in Philippians two four, look out for

one another's interest, not just your own. Now, friends, that

is such a counterculture verse because everything in our culture.

From the moment you were born, you are conditioned to

think first of yourself. You don't think about other people naturally.

That's something you have to learn to do. You naturally

think about your needs, your desires, your goals, your ambitions,

and what you want in life.

I gotta do what's best for me.

I got to think of me first, and as a result,

we have many, many millions of people disconnected because everybody's

thinking of themselves and not being considerate of each other's needs.

This last week, I was watching.

TV and during about a two hour period, I saw

three commercials with the same byline, you deserve it. It

was the byline, you know, buy this shampoo, you deserve it.

Buy this great car, you deserve it. And we are

taught you know that we are the supreme value in life. Now,

let me teach you two very basic truths about life.

The first one may surprise you, but it is true.

And the first rule of life is this. The world

does not revolve around you. Now, I know that's shocking,

but the world does not revolve around you. You're very

special in God's eyes. You were created for a purpose.

But the world does not revolve around you. If you

want to know how much you be missed. Stick your

hand into a bucket of water and pull it out

and see what kind of hole you leave. It fills

up pretty quick, pretty quick. And so the world does

not revolve around you. So don't be expecting the whole

world to come and just say how can we meet

your needs? Because it's not. The second basic truth of

life you need to learn is this. God has promised

that when you focus on meeting the needs of other people,

he guarantees.

He will meet yours.

So you want your needs to be met, simple, start

focusing on meeting the needs of other people. God says

it over and over in the Bible that if I

focus on meeting the needs of other people, God assumes

responsibility to meet all of my needs. Why because He

wants me to learn to be unselfish. He wants me

to learn to be loving. He wants me to learn

to be generous like him. Colossians three thirteen says this,

you must make allowances, an allowance for each other's faults,

and forgive the person who offends you. Remember God forgave you,

so you must forgive others. Now, part of being considered

of other people's needs is making allowances for their faults.

Part of being considered of other people's needs is not

expecting them to be perfect. You're not perfect. You could

never attain perfection, so why would you demand it of

anybody else? Nobody is perfect. I read recently, a woman

wrote to Dear Abby, Dear Abbey, I'm forty four years old.

I'd like to find a man my age with no

bad habits. Abby wrote back, so would I, because there

are no people with no bad habits, with no faults,

and so we have to make allowance for each other's

false Let me give you another verse. Proverbs seventeen to

nine says love forgets mistakes.

Love forgets mistakes.

When you are trying to make a connection with a person,

you're trying to be considered their needs. It's not that

you are blind to their faults. It's that you choose

to overlook them. Great friends have good forgetters. They forget

the bad stuff intentionally, you know, they just keep on.

Like I said, they have good forgeters because love forgets mistakes.

A good friend never says I told you so. A

good friends never says, how could you be that stupid? Instead,

a good friend is considerate of the other person's needs.

Tom's going to talk about the next.

One third way to connect with people is to be

constructive with your words. Take your words and use them

to build people up. As it says in this verse

in Ephesians chapter four, verse twenty nine, do not let

any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only

what is helpful for building others up according to their needs,

that it may benefit those who listen. In that verse,

would you circle building others up? God wants us to

take these words and use them to build people. I

was thinking, I was thinking about building this week, and

I recalled earlier in our marriage, Seandell and I had

a home that was flooded and we had groups of

people come in and help us rebuild them at home,

which was a wonderful thing. Something pretty funny happened with

the first groups that came in. Before we could build

the walls back up, we had to tear the sheeting

off of the walls. So the first people that came in,

we gave them sledgehammers. We'd send them into a room

and they had to knock the walls down and we'd

walk out of the room. We'd start hearing this laughter

in the room while they were knocking the walls down,

because you know what, if you got a sledgehammer, you

need to just swing it and knock something down. It's

sort of fun. And Shandala and I would walk back

in the room and they'd look all sad again because

it was our house after all. And then we walked

back out and they just start swinging away again. It's

fun to tear things down. And sometimes with our words

it's like a sledgehammer. No planning, no thinking, We just

swing away, and then all of a sudden we look

around and all we've got is we've got a pile

of rubble around us, relational rubble, because when you just

swing away with your words and just tear people down

with your words, inevitably, inevitably, your relationships are gonna suffer

from that. Words are this single most important tool given

to man by God, without a doubt, without a doubt.

Back in the Book of Genesis in the Bible, the

Bible tells us that a place called Babbel, they were

trying to build a tower to reach as high as heaven.

We're getting pretty prideful about it. So God wanted to

stop the project. To stop the project. He didn't take

away their hammers of their saws. He took away their words,

their ability to communicate. Because there's such an incredibly important

tool that God's given us. One of the reasons that

we're not constructive with our words is we don't realize

how how powerful this tool is. Our mouth, the words

that God has given to us. We say things without thinking,

and people remember them. You do the things that people

have said to you in.

A thoughtless way.

It may have been as far back as grade school

or college, or when you first started work. You still

remember some of those things. That's how powerful words are.

So when it comes to your mouth, think of it

as a power tool and be very careful with it.

I went out in my garage yesterday and I have

this manual for a power tool, a power saw, and

I was reading through the directions for the use of

this power tool, and I was struck by how it

related to the use of this other power tool that

God's given us, our mouth. See if you think some

of them relate to our mouth too. Number one, know

your power tool. Number two keep guards in place. That's

a good one. Number three, keep be careful around children,

store idle tools when not in use, don't overreach, and

my favorite, never use in an explosive atmosphere. That fits

with how we use this mouth, which is an incredible

tool to build people up. So how can I start

using it more carefully? How can I if I got

a power tool, how can I use it more carefully?

So instead of destroying with it, I'm building and constructing

relationships with it. Well, I got to stop excusing, Stop

saying that I didn't really mean to say that, or

stop saying it was just that blood sugar dip right

before lunch.

That's all that it really was.

Stop it excusing and realize what you say really is

impacting everybody around you.

I've got to talk less.

If it's a power tool, you don't have to use

it as much so I can talk less. One of

the reasons we get in trouble, wudn't you admit, is

we just talk too much. Sometimes we talk before we think.

Got to talk less, and I've got to listen more.

When I listen more, I can understand people's needs. I

was talking to Shandell, my wife, on the phone yesterday,

and she was on the car phone and as usual,

about halfway through it dropped out, so the phone rang

again right away and knew it was her and clicked

on and said, hi, babe. Doug Field said, I've been

waiting seven years for you to say that to me,

is what he said. I said, You're gonna have to

wait another seven years, is what I told him. I

learned a little lesson once again, listen before you talk.

It's one of the small lessons of life that makes

incredible impact in the way that you and I use

our words. So stop excusing, talk lesson, listen more, and

through all of that, start building. Think first of all,

what do they need? How can I use a word

of encouragement to build them up? How can I use

a word of challenge to make a difference in their life?

How can I use my words to build the people

that I love the most.

The fourth key to connecting is to be candid, to

be candid about the problems in the relationship. In other words,

you have to be open, You have to be honest,

you you have to be frank. Proverbs twenty four to

twenty six says an honest answer is the sign of

a true friendship.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily hope. We're so happy you've

chosen to study along with us today. You can get

hope and encouragement from Pastor Rick delivered to your inbox

every day. Just go to Pastorick dot com and sign

up for his free daily devotional. Rick will be back

to close out our time today. But first, do you

desire more of God? He desires more of you. Let

me ask you this, how's your relationship with God right now?

Maybe you're walking closely with Him and you feel energized

and alive, or maybe you just feel disconnected, like you're

going through the motions. Pastor Rick says, if you want

to stay connected and even deepen your relationship with God,

you need to be intentional. That's why every year Pastor

Rick personally goes through a spiritual renewal study, and now

he's made that very same study available to you. It's

called Going Deeper with God, a personal renewal retreat. In

this very special resource, Pastor Rick will personally lead you

on a spiritual journey that brings you closer to God. Together,

you'll go through a series of audio lessons after each session,

and you'll take a little time to reflect and complete

exercises in the Companion Workbook. Through this retreat, you'll experience

a renewal of life within you. God will restore your joy.

As he renews, refreshes, reinvigorates, and revives your spiritual life.

You'll never be the same again. We'll send you going

Deeper with God a personal Renewal retreat as our way

of saying thanks when you give a gift today to

help Daily Hope share the hope of Jesus with a

hurting world. Just go to Pastorick dot com right now

to get your copy, or you can call eight hundred

six hundred five thousand and four. That's Pastorick dot com.

Or just call eight hundred six hundred five thousand and

four and be sure to let us know which radio

station you hurt us on. Thank you so much for

your support. Here's Pastor Rick with a letter from one

of our listeners today.

I want to share a letter from a new listener, Sherman,

who's in Tennessee, and he writes that he and his

wife use Daily Hope to study God's word together. Here's

what he wrote.

Just recently, a.

Friend of mine turned me on to your Daily Hope

devotional and also gave me your CD series on the

Lord's Prayer and Wow Together. My wife and I now

listen to Daily Hope podcast. We take notes, we pray,

we have great conversations about all the biblical teachings that

we get from you, and we both look forward to

that time of being encouraged and challenged and instructed.

Now I know, Pastor.

Rick, that it was through the giving of other people

that made it possible for me to hear the Daily

Hope teaching, and so now I want to make an

eternal investment myself by giving to this ministry so that

others may be blessed and impacted in the same.

Way that my wife and I have been.

Well, Sherman, I'm so glad to hear that you and

your wife are studying the Bible together. Nothing will do

more for your marriage. It will not only hope to

grow in faith, it will strengthen your marriage. And thank

you for your financial gift. Without your help, we wouldn't

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The good News of Jesus.

We wouldn't be able to disciple them through the Daily

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If you'd like to let Rick know how this broadcast

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time as we look into God's word for our daily hope.

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