Relational Intelligence: You Do You

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I miss a few things that you know that I get to come back to the Bay Area for.

Of course, Awakening and you and the and the people, friends, of course, is at the top of the list.

And you know, Florida is, I think Florida gets a bad rap.

I don't know.

That's my perception of, you know, before I went to Florida and things I hear, but it's like we we love West Palm Beach.

I mean, Florida does not have alligators roaming around the driveways, as some people think, all the time.

In fact, I've seen one in two and a half years.

So I'm just saying, yes, humidity, it's like a sauna sometimes, no doubt, but you know, there's air conditioned, so you know, um, it's not so bad.

Um, one of the things that I do miss though of the Bay Area is is In N Out Burger, right?

And it's like you talk about In N Out Burger in Florida, and they're like, what?

You're dumb at a fast food restaurant?

Really?

Can that cheeseburger be so good?

I'm like, yes, it is, you know, it's like I leave the airport yesterday or the other day Friday and I go right to In N Out, mostly because my son wanted it, but I love In N Out Burger, right?

But people just don't get it.

You know, you guys have kind of been around, right?

You talk about like, huh, you know.

Um so that's the bad news.

Doesn't have that in Florida, but we do have Chick-fil-A.

If you're a fan of Chick-fil-A, I am, and that's a good thing.

I think it would have been a deal breaker that maybe we wouldn't have moved there if they didn't have it.

But I remember when the Sunny Vale Chick-fil-A went up here, I don't know if anybody remembers that, but uh me and a couple buddies decided we were gonna sleep out at Chick-fil-A and be one of the first 100, because you know what happens with that, right?

You get free Chick-fil-A for a year.

So I'm like, I'm all in, let's do it.

So I try to convince Sherry, my wife, uh, to do it with me, right?

I'm giving her a hard time, I'm nudging, and and and she's like, Are you kidding me?

Do you know me?

You know, no, I'm not gonna do that, you know?

And and of course I respect her decision and didn't bug her anymore.

No, not true, but I I kept bugging her.

She kept saying, no, no, no.

And I started, you know, going through this long list of things that you know would be awesome.

Like, we get to stay all up all night and eat all this Chick-fil-a, and it would be a couple other dudes, and we'll stay out in the tent.

And I started like listing these things, I'm like, these are these are all things she hates, you know.

It's like, you know, it's like, what, what?

You know, and um, she's like, I am not gonna go sleep with three smelly guys in the tent.

You have fun with that.

I'll be in my warm bed at home, eating whatever I want, yada yada yada, right?

But I did actually do it with my buddies, and we did become one of the first 100 at that Chick-fil-A, and I did not share any of it the whole year with Sherry, right?

So it's like, too bad, buy your own, you know.

Um there, there we have it.

So some of you are like, okay, Steve, he really is an idiot.

Did he really do that?

Did he really try to convince her?

And some of you are like, You're a genius, that's awesome, fist bump in the air, right?

And um, and the and the thing that Sherry said to me along the way is what I say to you.

Sherry said to me when we were in these conversations, I was listening to all these things, like, you should come do this.

She told me, she goes, You've heard this phrase.

She goes, You do you, and I'll do me.

You know, I'll be back home.

And um and and and and that's kind of you know what ended the conversation.

And I think about that phrase, you do you.

It's kind of common language in our in our culture in our day.

Maybe you've said it, maybe you've heard it said to you.

But you know, it's a great phrase in a lot of ways.

It it affirms uh, you know, how it's used, it typically affirms someone, so they say, like, be yourself, right?

You do you, right?

Kind of thing.

And it's like, okay, that's a good thing.

And and there's something great about you know living in your true self and releasing you know that person to be who they really were created to be and all their uniqueness.

Something wonderful about that.

And you know, in a day when a lot of us, uh, I guess it's a human thing, struggle with people pleasing or or maybe living in our false self in one way or another, which is kind of a not a good way to live, you know, this idea of you do you and living in your uniqueness, there's some really good aspects of it.

But it can also go different directions, and and I guess you could say it has a good side and it has sort of a dark side, if you will, right?

That we have to reckon with.

And the dark side is this is you do you is all good until it takes you into that zone where you get overly focused on yourself.

We live in a culture where self-love, so to speak, and too much of it is become normal and become accepted and embraced, but but you do you is not all good, right?

There's this other side of it, and and and I think the way we navigate this whole idea, it fits under the umbrella of relational intelligence, of what we're talking about in the series.

And it affects the way we walk through this relational landscape in our lives, it affects the way we relate to people and impacts the health of our relational world, of our relationships.

So there was this recent New York Times uh magazine piece that actually did a piece on the phrase you do you.

And it associates that phrase with a narcissistic culture.

So it was kind of an interesting read that I came across.

And and the whole concept of narcissism came from, you may know the story, but it came from, you know, it was a Greek story that came from a guy named narcissists.

So it was this guy who was this attractive warrior and he was compelled to beauty, and he loved beauty, and and of course he thought that he was the most beautiful creature, yeah, creature that ever existed, right?

And and and and and nothing could sort of, you know, live up to his standard of beauty.

But he held beauty in high regard, and the story goes, he got dejected at some point, he couldn't find anything uh that could live up to his beauty.

And so one day he's walking by the pond and he looks into the pond and he sees the most beautiful creature he's ever seen.

And he jumps in the pond and he drowns.

Now that story may not be familiar to you, but I know one thing that is familiar to us is the image of drowning in self-love.

Our culture has become numb to this in so many ways.

Like I said, it's become normal and okay and embraced and accepted.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we're all narcissists in the room, but what I am suggesting is this, that we all have a susceptibility to this whole idea of too much loving of ourselves.

It's a real thing.

It's not normal.

It's not the it's not the um it's not the way of the scriptures.

And quite frankly, if if we give in to this susceptibility, what ends up happening in our relational world is it will disrupt and derail and damage our relationships, not to mention our soul.

And so the scriptures give us a different vantage point, give us a different framework.

And in one place, uh you have the Apostle Paul who writes in Philippians chapter two, he writes this amazing letter.

He writes it to this group of people in the city called Philippi.

He's writing from prison.

It's actually often called the joy epistle or the joy letter.

So Paul's writing with joy, and he's infusing encouragement and challenge, and says all kinds of amazing really things.

It's one of my favorite books in the Bible.

And he says in chapter 2, beginning in verse 3, he says this.

He says, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others.

And then he says in verse 5, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Jesus Christ.

Or you could say, have the same orientation toward relationships as Jesus Christ.

And then he has this amazing picture of Jesus that he paints that we'll come back to in a moment.

But but here's what Paul is saying here, both to his audience and today in our day to us.

There's this Greek word in there, it was originally written in Greek.

There's this Greek word in there, scopos, s-k-o-p-o-s.

Everybody say scopos.

Yeah, speaking a different language, right?

Scopos, right?

So what that word means, in essence, translated, it means focused attention or pay close attention to or zero in on.

And so what Paul is essentially saying, right, the idea isn't don't value yourself.

That's not what Paul is saying, it's not what the scriptures are saying anywhere, but but it is saying, I am challenging you, I am moving you, I am calling you to expand your heart ever more in valuing other people.

Because we all have the susceptibility, we all have the default to focus right here, to focus on me.

You do you, right?

There's something good in that, and then it goes awry when there's too much of that.

And lays through this passage is also the idea of humility.

And there's kind of a famous uh quote about humility that says uh really this that the goal is not to uh think less of yourself.

You've probably heard this, but it's to what?

Yeah, think of yourself less.

And that's it, right?

This is about love, valuing others and and and going the path of humility is about love.

This passage paints this picture about love, and love, in a sense, in this context especially, is in a sense you forget about yourself for a moment and you zero in, as Paul says, right?

You forget about yourself in a moment because you're so focused on the other.

I mean, what would it be like to live like that?

To be that kind of person, because this this is what Paul is calling us to.

It's the same life that Jesus calls us to.

In fact, it's critical in this context of relational intelligence if we want to cultivate healthy relationships, if we want to have vitality in our relational world, all across the board.

But here's the thing we all know that isn't easy.

I remember years ago I met a guy named Shane, and Shane tells this story about uh his heart to become more compassionate and more focused on others, and he said, I thought about the person that's you know most like that in the world.

And he thought of Mother Teresa.

So he tells this story about he says, Why not?

I'm gonna I'm gonna try to go visit Calcutta, where Mother Teresa is before she passed years ago.

And so he calls up, somehow he gets the the the orphanage she's part of.

He calls up, you know, trying to figure out if he can come visit and you know, maybe meet Mother Teresa.

And he calls up, he says, Um, can I speak with Mother Teresa?

And he tells the story, and and the lady on the phone says, This is her.

And he was just like flabbergasted.

He was like, I didn't have words, I didn't know what to say.

I was like taken back, you know.

And uh they basically had a conversation, and he said, Can I can I actually come out and visit?

I would love to just learn from you and see what you do.

And she, of course, invited him out, and he goes to Calcutta a few weeks later and he spends time there.

And what Shane told me, I never forgot.

Because I asked him, he's like, What was Mother Teresa like?

I was so curious.

And he described her, and at one point he said this, he's like, When you're talking with Mother Teresa, she makes you feel like no one else in the world is more important than you.

And I thought, that's a beautiful thing.

If you can experience that from someone else, right?

You're on the receiving end of that.

And he talked about how much it impacted him and his soul and how different he was because of it.

And you may hear that story and you go, because I do too.

I go, that's so lofty, and it's like Mother Teresa.

Like, how can that be?

I can never be that person.

I'm so far from it.

But I think we have to pay attention here, because at least to me, that that's an inspiring story, but maybe feels a bit out there.

But at the same time, I look at it and I go, that's a human being, just like me and you.

That's a human being who, at some level, at some point, struggled or probably ongoingly struggled with the idea of self-focus.

Because we all do.

And it's a person that went on a journey that made choice after choice after choice to go against the way the culture tends to think about relationships.

She chose a path of serving, she chose a path of humility, she chose a path of forgetting about herself and choice after choice, hard work, many mistakes, all the imperfections.

And she aspired to this way of being, this way of living, this way of relating to other people, and her life left a legacy of which we all know.

Impacted Shane has impacted me.

And she's an example of someone who does it right.

Right?

We have her kind of esteemed, and and that's and that's all right and good.

But she was a human being who chose to serve every day.

And and it wasn't easy and it wasn't hard, and it cost her a lot.

But in God's grace and God's power and the way he worked in her life, she was a transformed person.

I didn't know her personally, but you know, you know that because of how she lived.

It's evident.

And this is central, this this whole idea, this whole concept, this is central for those of us who are followers of Jesus.

This is central to what Jesus wants to be evident in your life.

This way of relating to people, that that we would actually propel love in this kind of way, that we would propel this idea of valuing other people above yourself, that we would learn to forget about ourselves for a moment as we focus on the other.

But to become this kind of person, we have to decide that we're gonna overcome the dark side, that we're gonna overcome the current of our culture that says it's all good, right?

We should focus on ourselves, right?

After all, I'm the best, right?

And I need to be loved.

And it just gets distorted somewhere along the way.

And what I imagine Mother Teresa dealt with is the same thing we're gonna have to deal with, that to be an overcomer of this self-focus, this over-self-focus.

And that's why I love in Colossians chapter three, Paul again writing a different letter to a different group of people.

And you know, signs of narcissism, they say, are when someone's overly focused on um, you know, how good looking they are, or how talented they are, or how they're perceived by others, or their prestige, or things like that.

And it's why I love you know this passage in Colossians where where he gives us a different fashion to put on.

He says, Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, he says, clothe yourselves with, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Clothe yourselves with.

Put these on every day, is in essence, is what he's saying.

Compassion, humility, gentleness, patience, kindness.

And in 1 Thessalonians, we we read another Paul's letter, and again, he says, be patient with everyone.

And this is laced throughout all the scriptures, but but you see these traits.

And if we begin to become people who put on those traits, compassion, kindness, humility, if we put on those traits day in and day out, you know what happens?

People will start to be drawn to you.

Because we're drawn to that.

The opposite is true of pride, right?

You run into someone who's really prideful.

If you're anything like me, I'm kind of repelled by that.

Someone who's unkind, kind of repelled by that, someone who's impatient.

There are things that generally draw you away, but the reverse is also true.

And so we we choose this life and following Jesus, and we put on these traits, and we invite God's Spirit to form and shape this in us.

And that along the way we actually would become more patient, which I need some of that, or more compassionate or kind or humble and all the rest.

I mean, this is critical.

Now, there's an asterisk here because some people in this world, in this life, in your world, aren't necessarily drawn to those things, and rather are more drawn to things like prestige and fame and money and power.

I guess that's the asterisk.

And if and if that's what you seek, and people are drawn to that, to you in that, what they're drawn to is things only on the surface and nothing in your soul.

But when we choose to live a different way, when we choose to go the Philippians 2 way, the way of Jesus, where we serve and choose humility and kindness and compassion, and we begin to live that way and take our eyes off ourselves and our eyes on others, the the relational world that we live in gets transformed.

It's critical.

And maybe even the most critical skill, the most essential skill for your relational world, is that you would learn to genuinely care about other people.

And in some ways that sounds so simple, but you think about your own life.

I mean, wouldn't it be amazing if that was the world we lived where you felt cared about by others all around you?

Quite the opposite is what we often feel.

And we're a broken humanity, and we're all works in progress, no doubt.

But but Philippians is telling us, don't put on self-love higher than others' love.

Remember Jesus, he says, love one another just as I have loved you.

Well, if you know anything about Jesus, he laid his life down, he lived this agape kind of love that was that was selfless and sacrificial.

He was giving his self away.

And he told us at one point, when you give yourself away, when you give your life away, what do you find?

You find life.

You find life for yourself and you offer life to others.

And here's what it requires it requires us to live this out, to be this kind of people.

It requires us to step out of our universe and into the universe of another.

And so maybe you're wondering, maybe you asked, like, how do we actually do that?

Right?

How do we step into this universe of another?

How do we live out what Paul is talking about and what Shane told a story about?

So this morning I want to give you four things, really four choices that you and I can make really on a daily basis in how we relate to people.

And I think what Paul is doing in this text is he's contrasting, to put it simply, he's contrasting an overly self-focused person with a relationally generous person.

And it's what the scriptures call us to.

And these are the choices of a relationally generous person.

Number one, they become an intentional question asker.

An intentional question asked.

This is really practical to me, but but this may surprise you.

When you look at the life of Jesus, right?

He's the Son of God.

If you if you read the Gospels and read about Jesus or just heard about Jesus, it may surprise you on this, but Jesus asked all kinds of questions.

He wasn't really looking for answers, he kind of knew it all.

So there was something else going on, but but he answered, he asks questions.

In fact, here is a study I did in the Gospel of Matthew, he asks 87 questions.

In the Gospel of Mark, he asks, it's a smaller gospel, he asks 50 questions in the context of about 60 conversations.

In the Gospel of Luke, he asks 129 questions.

And then if you step back and zoom out and look at all four gospels, when Jesus gets asked a question 183 times, I didn't count or anything, he responds with, what would you say?

More questions.

307 questions to be exact.

So he gets asked 183, he goes back with 307.

And somewhere between three and eight of his responses has what we would consider a direct answer, depending on what translation you use or how you think about it.

That's like, I first discovered that, and I was like, that's incredible.

And so you ask the question, what's going on there?

Well, there's a lot of things going on, but one thing that we know for sure is Jesus used questions to relate to people, he used questions to challenge people, but he used questions to care about people, to extend this way of engaging with them and engaging them that drew them together and fostered a human connection.

And it was a powerful reality, and you see throughout the gospels, we don't have time to go all into all of it, you see life after life changed.

You see people walking away thinking about things, you see, you see people's frameworks get radically changed or challenged.

I was in college a few years ago, and uh and I met a friend who helped sort of me sort out what I believed, and and I had all these longings and questions in my own soul, and and and I made a decision at that point in my life to become a fully devoted follower of Christ.

I didn't really know many uh Christians at the time, but but I was all in.

I was like, all right, I've I've weighed this for a while, and I'm all in.

And along the way, uh God brought this this guy into my life named Marty, and he became a mentor, still is to this day, a lifelong mentor.

And I remember those early days when Marty reached out to me, and he was a guy that uh would initiate with me.

He sort of um took me under his wing.

He was, you know, 10 years plus older than me.

But but I remember sitting with Marty at coffees and lunches in different places, and Marty was a question asker.

And he would ask me about you know um my family or my life.

He would ask me about my struggles and my pain.

I mean, he would empathize, you know, if I was struggling or in, you know, going through something difficult.

He he would ask all kinds of questions.

He would ask about girls, because I was single at the time.

I think he was trying to link me up with not really his daughter, but somebody he knew.

I don't know what was going on with that.

That was a side note.

But um, but he was asking questions.

It wasn't Sherry, there's not like some good story at the end of that.

Sorry.

But he leaned into those moments.

He asked me about what I dreamed about and my call.

And I remember like this went on and on.

Every time we got together, it was like, wait a minute, I should be asking you the questions.

You know, you're my mentor.

You're my and what I felt from him was this genuine care.

There was no doubt in my mind that he cared about me.

That he cared about my story, that he cared about my life now and in the future.

And I remember thinking, I've never had someone that asked me that many questions.

And I've never felt cared about like this.

And it was a it was a powerful impact that it made on my life.

And here's the thing in my own life, I haven't bumped into too many of those people.

Where you experience this kind of person that listens deeply to you and asks questions and is present with you and cares.

It's like that's an amazing quality.

Quite rare if you look at my human experience.

But when somebody slows down long enough to ask you questions, I mean it was almost like Marty thought about it before.

But it was just how he related to people.

And I remember, you know, there were moments he would validate what I was saying, and he didn't even agree with me, because validation really isn't about agreeing, but he would say things like that makes sense, or I see how you feel that way.

Or he would do what I would call like exploring, like basically the spirit of tell me more.

He wouldn't just ask one question, he would go deeper, and he would he would sometimes guide the conversation.

But it wasn't like laced with agenda, if you know what I mean, either.

It was laced with I just care about you as a person.

I'm gonna sit with you and I'm gonna ask you, and different days we talked about different things, of course.

But he slowed down.

And you know what he was communicating with his questions at the core?

And what I felt, I didn't have words for then, but he was communicating you matter.

That you are worthy of love.

And he made a choice somewhere along the way in his life, and it was choice after choice, really, that he was gonna live a life that he related to people in a way that they didn't feel invisible, that they didn't feel anonymous, that they felt known and understood.

And he used questions as one way of doing this.

And we can't go around demanding this from other people, no, no doubt about that.

But what we can do is we can be that kind of person.

We can determine that we're gonna start asking questions more.

And then we're gonna do choice number two, which goes right hand in hand with it.

And it's this, right?

These are strongly tied, is to become a genuine listener.

I guess these go together like peanut butter and jelly, or if you have a peanut allergy, gin and tonic, I don't know.

But they they they they're hard to separate, right?

I mean, if we ask a question and don't listen, what does it matter?

Right?

The tonic without the gin, you know what I'm saying?

I'm in church, I forgot.

Um, sorry.

James 1.19 says, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

So this idea here is to be late to speak.

To wait before you speak, right?

To listen.

Listen closely, listen more, listen quicker.

Right?

That that's that's the idea here.

And I'm just gonna say this for you.

I don't know all of you, I know some of you.

I'll say it actually about the ones I know.

You're all deficient in listening, okay?

If I don't know you, take a pass, right?

But I think we all are, seriously.

We all have a deficiency.

That's what I run into in life, and that's what I sometimes, more than sometimes maybe struggle with, to genuinely listen to somebody.

And I'll tell you this: some of my worst parenting moments, maybe all of them, I was quick to speak and slow to listen.

I was quick to become angry.

It's called impatience often.

Quite the opposite.

In conflict.

I mean, imagine our approach to conflict, whether it's in marriage or friendship or wherever work.

Imagine, right?

Because we all have the same desire in conflict.

We want to be understood, we want to be heard, we think we're right, right?

Both sides.

From where they see it, they're right.

And we approach conflict and we want to argue our case, right?

We want to get, you know, at what we want to get out, we want to be understood.

And I mean, what if we flip that, which is so often what Jesus does, he flips things upside down, right?

It's part of what this series is about.

What if we flipped it and what if we actually waited and we're late to speak and we actually listen and we actually sought to understand the other person and we empathize.

I mean, I know it's hard, depending on what the conflict is, it's really hard.

I've been there many times.

But I'll tell you one thing the the better moments that I've had and the better moments that I've seen others had in conflict is when the when someone in the mix seeks to understand the other and genuinely listens to their perspective, their side.

It doesn't mean they agree, but they genuinely listen.

There's this research I ran across.

The title of the article was something like Um Top Five Things Generation Z and Millennials Care About.

And the article opens up and this has this little story, but but what he quickly gets to is this he says, middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college students, one of the things that they said that came to the top of that research was they say about their their parents, but adults in general, is that they do way too much talking and need to do more listening.

And I thought, whether you think they're right or wrong, that perception is it is real to them, right?

And it's like it reminded me of my own parenting and my own way of relating to people, to lead with listening.

And here's the thing: I know some personality types are like, you know, you're just sort of naturally a better listener.

I get that.

But if we look at the scriptures and we really understand listening and what even Paul is saying in this context, listening is not an option for those of you who are followers of Jesus.

It's not an option.

Why?

Because love stands above all.

Love is required of all of us.

Love is the movement that we're part of, right?

That we that we would be known as his disciples by our love.

And when we genuinely listen, you know what happens?

You know what the other person experiences?

They experience love.

They experience authentic love.

I love this quote.

I've said it often and it cuts right to that.

It's a guy named David Augsburger, and he says this.

He says, Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable.

I mean, let that sit in.

That's a powerful truth.

When we listen, we love, to say it simply.

Or maybe to say it more specifically, when we listen really well and really genuinely, what people feel and know and experience and translate is authentic love.

A kind of love that's serving them, that's caring about them, that step that that person is stepping out of their universe to step into another's.

And that's a powerful relational dynamic that transforms your relationships.

I remember the day very distinctly that my son Hudson, a few years ago, said to me, He's a very articulate little kid, he said, He said, Dad, when I'm telling you something important, and you act like you're listening, but you're really not listening, I feel invisible.

And then he kind of elaborated, and I don't feel like you care about what I'm saying or even what I or even who I am or something like that, right?

And um and I was just like, you know, and and and he said it so well, and it hit me, and it reminds me that genuine listening on the positive side fosters human connection.

But when it's not there, right?

When when you're given that, and I've done, I'm I'm as guilty as anybody in the room, when you're given that uh-huh-uh-huh-uh-h and like, and then you know, they they they realize, oh, wait, you're just giving the head nod, you know, a little verbal that's really not, you know, you're really not listening, you're just trying to tell them you are.

Um, but when you do it right, you're telling the person you matter, that you're worthy of love.

And in that moment for Hudson, it was like, no, I'm telling him he doesn't, or at least what he's saying doesn't.

That he isn't worthy of my love, at least in this moment.

I mean, that is what gets translated.

Granted, he's a kid, right?

And that's that's what reminds me of this powerful reality.

So here's the question: why don't we listen better?

Why is it so hard?

It is for me, it probably is for most of you, maybe all of you.

And I think it comes down to this because it cost us something.

It cost us something.

It requires us to take our focus off ourself and focus on another.

It requires us to step out of our universe and world and where all our kind of energy is focused a lot of times, naturally, and put it aside.

Put aside our pride and our ego.

Choose humility.

It's difficult.

I uh listened to this sports talk guy uh named Colin Cowherd.

I don't know if anybody knows him, but I'm a big fan.

And no one, no one's a fan.

Has anyone a fan?

No?

He probably like ripped on the 49ers recently or something.

That's why you're all reacting like that.

But anyway, I'm in, I live near Miami, right?

West Palm Beach, and and so the Super Bowl was there last week.

I'm sorry for all the 49ers fans, but I took Hudson down to the Super Bowl experience.

I didn't go to the Super Bowl.

I don't have money for that, but I went to this pre-Super Bowl experience, kids are free kind of thing, you know?

And um, and it was really cool.

Like my son saw Saquon Barkley and he walks up with a football and he's like sign it and he signed, and he was just like lit up, right, for like days.

Um but anyway, I saw Colin Cowherd, and I was like, I was like a little kid, man.

He was like this close to me, you know.

I was like pointing at him and I wanted a selfie and I want him like, hey Colin, how's it going?

You know, I was like having that moment, you know.

I know, maybe I'm weird, but I was.

I was like, hey, I like that guy.

But anyway, I listened to him, and so he's like really interesting to me, and he brings these like different sort of statistics and things in.

So I'm I'm listening to him talk about sports.

He was actually talking about Tom Brady or whatever, whatever.

But he says this quote on research that he came across from the University of Washington that studied hundreds of couples, and through the study, they had a 99% certainty rate of which of those couples would get divorced.

99%.

Hundreds of couples.

And he said, what came out of that research, one thing emerged to the top, is when there's a couple, and you they they interviewed these couples in the interviews, when there was disrespect and eye rolling, right?

The other person wasn't listening really and they weren't seeking to understand, you could put it that way, but there was disrespect and eye rolling, 99% of the time it led to divorce, broken relationship.

And when he said that, it hit me.

I was like, number one, I was like, I'm preparing my sermon right now.

Watch or listening to Colin Coward, I'm like, yeah, I might do that more often, right?

But but more importantly, I was like, yeah, I think that's right.

Uh about all relationships, right?

When when we don't listen, when we roll our eyes, so to speak, however we do that, when we show disrespect, when we don't seek to understand and really listen, when we don't empathize with their side, I mean, this can't be overstated.

There's a breakdown in the relationship.

But the reverse is also true.

And I think the importance of listening can't be overstated.

And here's the thing if I can just say this, I can, right?

Yes?

You don't even know what I say.

Um, Christians, right?

Christians talk about love a lot.

I mean, I'm all for love.

A lot of people are for love.

It's like, what if we stopped talking so much about it and did it?

What if we decided that we were actually gonna go around being the best listeners in the world?

And people would feel heard and they would experience love and that would get translated.

I mean, what if that was the MO of a Jesus follower?

And people said about us, like I said about Marty, I've never seen someone ask so many questions, I've never seen someone engage with me and listen and actually care about my life and my pain and my struggles and my dreams and my calling and my future and my family and all the rest.

I mean, what if we were that kind of people?

Because I think we're called to that.

And it would transform the relationships in our life, guaranteed.

It would transform our marriage, it would transform our relationship with our kids or our parents, it would transform our friendships, perhaps our roommates and even work, right?

It would transform the way that we relate to people.

I dream of that day.

I pray for that day.

I pray that I would become that kind of person.

And when you talk about listening, I'm not talking about you never talk, by the way.

Right?

There should be reciprocity, right?

I'm not talking about that.

But hey, don't we all need more doses of listening than we do talking?

We all got the talking thing, most of us, right?

So let's just like put that in for another sermon someday.

But we need to listen, right?

And and then it brings into the third, the third choice we can make, which I fail at a lot.

And maybe this is like the bread to the peanut butter and gel.

I don't know, that doesn't really work.

So, anyway, sorry, some of you got that, most of you didn't.

And it wasn't funny.

Sorry, the third choice, right, is to be fully present.

To be a question asker and a genuine listener, and this goes hand in hand right there.

To be fully present.

When the rich young ruler in the gospels interacted with Jesus, there's this phrase said about Jesus that says, He looked at him and loved him.

He wasn't rushed, he wasn't distracted, he was fully present with the man.

He heard his story.

There was a tell me more spirit.

He was fully engaged in the moment, not just physically, not just his body, but emotionally and relationally, I would say even spiritually, that he heard this man struggle.

So I was in the Atlantic Ocean not too long ago, and I had my Apple watch on, forgot to take it off, maybe I didn't have the right band, and I'm in the ocean and I suddenly realize my watch is gone.

Yeah, I'm like, ooh.

Then I looked down and a crab had it right there.

No, I'm just kidding.

Sorry, that's a lie.

Um, I lost it, it's in the ocean.

Probably a crab has it somewhere, right?

I was so bummed.

Those things cost a little bit of money, you know what I'm saying?

At least for me.

And I was so bummed, you know, and I was told Sherry, I'm so sorry, we're gonna have to spend more money to buy myself an Apple Watch, yada yada yada.

And she's like, Well, we ain't boy.

And she said this.

She said, I'm kind of glad you lost it.

I was like, what?

My wife, you love me, I love you, right?

But here's what she said, seriously.

She said, because sometimes you have that watch on and you're here, but you're not really here.

Which, you know, buzzing the text or whatever.

And I was just like, ee, that's like hard to hear, you know, but so true.

And I know the day we live, and I know we got our phones and our watches and all that.

I'm not against that.

Hear me?

But what I am against is right here is that if it detracts from being fully present to the people that you love the most, something's off.

And I'm the first to admit it, and I'm the first to say, I'll fail.

I'm not saying get rid of your Apple Watch, don't take that away.

But what I am saying is choose to live fully present.

And if anything gets in the way for you, figure it out.

Because it'll do damage to your relationships, it'll create disconnection.

I don't want to live my life here but somewhere else.

And frankly, I struggle with that.

I struggle with being distracted or preoccupied, right?

It's part of my maybe personality makeup, and it's just part of you know my own lack of discipline, perhaps at times.

But those those moments remind me of something even further, especially with the people that I love the most, because they disrupt human connection, they they derail relationship.

And when I reflect back on my life years from now, I got two boys, right?

I have to ask myself the question: what story do I want them to remember about their dad?

Do I want Hudson to remember that he had a dad that was constantly on his phone when we were in conversation?

That he was disengaged and not really here, that he was distracted and disconnected, that when I shared my pain or my longings or my struggles, he didn't really show up.

I mean, he was in front of me, but he really wasn't.

Do I want that to be the story?

Or do I want the story to be, man, I had a dad who showed up, who sat with me in moments.

You know, when you do in life, it's like you can't predict, like, oh, we're gonna have a conversation about this now.

Life happens.

And I see that more than anything with kids.

And I and I have to ask myself the question: don't I want that to be like my legacy in a sense in Hudson's heart and Hudson's mind, that he would have a dad that was present with him, that showed up for him, that was in the moment, that looked at him and loved him, and he felt it.

That I asked him questions, that I helped him kind of explore his own questions, that I genuinely listened, that I was fully, I mean, that's who I want to be.

And I'm not there yet.

Chances are many of you aren't there yet, but this is the picture of relational health that the scriptures point us to.

It's the one they paint for us.

And trust me, I don't get it right all the time.

I wrote the book on relational intelligence.

I'm supposed to, right?

But no, none of us do.

But that's not the point.

The point is what Paul is telling us, he's saying, look, I'm pointing you into a new way of living, a different way of living, a different way of relating.

I'm calling you to it, and you're gonna need God's grace and you're gonna need God's power.

And it leads me to the fourth point, which is this is that you have to choose to stay connected to the source.

So I took Hudson to uh a virtual reality story, you know, you throw those headgears on, and you know, it's like funny to watch somebody do it.

Sherry, I actually did it and Sherry filmed me, and I was doing this boxing one, you know, and I'm just like throwing jabs and punches, you know, and she has it on film, and like nothing's in front of me, right?

It's just a funny kind of deal.

So anyway, Hudson's doing it, he's playing Spider-Man, and he's climbing walls, he's falling on the ground, right?

It's just kind of and and then suddenly the thing goes off.

We're watching the TV, you know, we're the world he's living in, you know, and um and we watch it, and then it goes off, and he's like, Dad, it's not working.

And I look down and it wasn't plugged in, and I said, Hey, it's it's not connected.

And so, of course, the guy goes over there and connects it, and the new world, right, comes in.

And I love the metaphor because number one, in virtual reality, right, you step out of the world you know, and you step into another world, and and and it's a new reality for you, at least for that moment.

And then the idea of connecting to the source.

When you're not connected to the source, you do live in your own reality.

But when you're connected to God, who is our source, and you step into a new universe, a new way of relating to people, a new way of living, that's the idea here.

That we will learn in the journey of life to step out of our own space and into the space of another.

And it takes God's power and it takes God's strength and it takes God's transformation.

But if you want to have healthy relationships, he is the source.

He is the source that will transform you into someone who serves, someone who is humble and compassionate and kind and gentle and patient and all the rest.

That he'll bring vitality and health to your relationships.

The best evidence of a vitality and health in your relationship with God is when it's lived out in your world, where your relational world is transformed, the way you relate to people, and you relate to them in ways where you find yourself serving them and loving them and caring for them genuinely, that you've learned to step out of your world and into someone else's because you've experienced Jesus.

See, when you remain connected to the source, what ends up happening is you grow in your realization that you in fact are worthy of love, that you matter to God.

And it's from that place, and it's from the place that that Marty came with me.

It's from that place that we become transformed and we become different kinds of people to the people around us.

Philippians 2, chapter 1, just a few verses before we read earlier, says, Your life in Christ makes you strong, and his love comforts you.

You have fellowship with his spirit, and you have kindness and compassion for one another.

There's this connectivity.

Jesus connects it, Paul connects it all throughout the scriptures.

It's connected.

Your relationship with God as it grows, as you're connected to the source, your relationships with others grow and become healthier and are transformed.

Because here's the thing: we always treat people from the vantage point of our own soul.

And if we're not living there with God, if we're not knowing how much value we have with Him, that we're worthy of love, we'll never be able to give that away.

And so I'll close with this, Philippians.

We didn't get to these verses, but here we go.

It says, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset, attitude, orientation that Jesus Christ has, and here's what Jesus Christ has, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, something to be used for his own advantage.

Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Jesus Christ left the space he was in and he stepped into our space.

He exited heaven and entered earth, and it wasn't safe and it wasn't easy.

In fact, he openly, willingly opened himself up to pain and suffering that led him to die on the cross.

Why?

Because we matter to him.

Because we were worthy of love, and every human being we bump into in life is to.

And Jesus is saying to you, just as I've laid my life down and died, but that brought life in a similar way.

When we die to ourself, life emerges.

Life in our own soul, life in our own life as we know it, and we become life givers to others.

See, Jesus is the one we must connect to.

Jesus is the one we must learn from.

If we want to become like Him, if we want to become people who can, in fact, step out of our world and step into the world of another, if we do that, we will propel a movement of love.

Because we're in this together.

This isn't just awakening.

This is a tribe of Jesus followers that's connected to people around the globe and from centuries past, and there's something eternal at stake.

I mean, what if the people that didn't know God that was on the journey of trying to figure that all out?

What if we were people who asked them questions rather than people that always tried to come with answers?

And what if we genuinely listened to them?

And what if we love them in a way where we are fully present with them and experience that?

And then the source that we were connected to somehow got translated to them and brought them life and hope.

We ought to be a voice of hope to people.

The way that we live our life, the way that we relate to people.

And this is a path that will take you to that place.