Love One Another - How to Connect Deeply with Others, Part 1

Do you long to be loved?

Do you wish there was a group of people that when you weren't there the conversation would be, where's, and then they would fill in your name? Do you have that? Do you want it? Do you know that God wants it for you? Today we'll learn how to get it.

Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge features the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram on this international discipleship program.

I'm Dave Druey, and as Chip continues our series, Love One Another, he gives us the keys to building relationships that really last. In other words, how to be devoted to one another in a way that comes through when it counts. Now if you have a Bible, open it to Romans chapter 12, and let's join him now for his message, How to Connect Deeply with Others. What did Jesus say? He said a lot of things, but in John 1334 he said, there's a new commandment, and the new commandment is this, love one another.

How? In the same way that he loved his early disciples, he told them and now tells us, love each other. We're going to learn that we're a family as well as a body. And so go ahead if you will, pull out, I put a little teaching hand out.

You can go ahead and pull that out. I'm going to be following that in a minute. The quote on the very front of that handout is from a very, very famous author, had the chance to meet him a couple times. Don't say I know him well at all, but have heard a lot of his teaching, have read several of his books, Dr. Larry Crabb.

25 years of counseling, multiple books, well trained, PhD, counseling practice, training students, on and on and on and on. He sees more and more and more and more breakdown in relationships. And he began to see that what the church originally was meant to do is happening more and more and more, that people sharing deeply, people working through deep issues, they were almost always doing it in therapy instead of in churches. And although he feels there's a clear role for quality Christian counseling, obviously he's a Christian counselor, what he began to see was, we're missing it. We're missing it somewhere. People aren't recovering.

People aren't growing into wholeness. Tells the story of meeting with a fellow and he said, you know, there's times where he said, without false humility, he's really good at what he does. He has great insight, he's well trained. And he said there was a particular problem, a very, very deep psychological problem in this fellow's life. He said we met a couple, three times, I mean for like two, three years. And he said he remembers the great breakthrough day and he felt like God just gave him insight like never before to really help this person see what was going on in his life and in his mind the whole healing process really began there. Later on during that time, however, he was just driving around and they happened to live in the same town and he noticed this friend and with another friend eating a brown bag lunch at a park. And so he thought, you know, this isn't very professional but he just had a prompting of God and he went over and just sat down on the grass, informally, took off his counselor hat and just said, how you doing?

And the guy started to, you know, give the psychological things he's working on. He said, oh, no, no, I mean like regular, you know, like regular people, how you doing? And you say fine. He said, oh, fine. He said, can I join for lunch? He said, well, sure. And they said, we sat down, we just had lunch, we didn't talk about his deep issues, we were just friends for 45 minutes.

He said, I didn't think anything of it, I got in my car, went back, he moved out of the area, he met him, I forget how much longer but it's a significant period of time longer. And he thought to himself, how are you doing? And the guy, glorious story, I mean glorious story, I mean real change, inner transformation, rightly connected with God, restored relationships, making great progress and he said, I just couldn't resist. He said, well, tell me, what was the turning point? And he said, in my mind I'm thinking, I can tell you the session. I know the session he's going to say and what I said and the great insight I brought and, you know, go ahead, tell me. And he said, you know, there was a day, there's a day when I think it'll all begin to turn around.

And, you know, his chest is swelling, you know. And he said, that day that you ate lunch with me in the park. He said, what? He said, yeah, just the day you ate lunch with me. He said, I don't know, we were just friends and we weren't working on my problem and somehow we connected and I felt affirmed and loved just as a regular person.

And he said, I think that was the turning point. Notice on the front of your handout I've pulled out a couple quotes from the foreword of Crabb's book, Connecting. He writes, imagine what could happen if God were to place within his people intangible nutrients that had the power to both prevent and reverse soul disease. And then he told us how to share those nutrients with each other in a special kind of intimate relating called connecting. Imagine what could happen if it were true, if we believed it and if we devoted ourselves to understanding what those nutrients were and how we could give them away. I envision a community, listen to that word carefully, of people who intentionally mingle in settings where these nutrients are passed back and forth where I pour into you the healing resources within me and you pour into me what God has put into you.

Like spiritual gifts these nutrients only nourish our own souls as we give them away for the blessing of others. Last paragraph, critical. Ready? In recent days, this is after 25 years as a professional counselor, I have made a shift. I am now working toward the day when communities of God's people, ordinary Christians whose lives regularly intersect will accomplish most of the good that we now depend on mental health professionals to provide. Do you hear what he's saying?

Paradigm shift. What he's saying is I realize he's done the research and after two years of psychotherapy the research tells us that people get about just as well with it or without it. There's special cases, I'm not saying Christian counseling isn't needed, it is, but for the mass, mass, mass, mass majority of the real soul issues, notice what he goes on to say, and they will do it by connecting with each other in ways that only the Gospel makes possible.

Dr. Larry Crabbe. What he's actually saying is, here's a renowned psychotherapist who concludes there must be a better way. I mean he's full fledged into counseling, he says there must be a better way, and here's the question, what is this better way and how does it work? And I like to suggest that since most of you have already turned the page, I will too, and that the better way is God's answer in Romans 12 10. It's one thing to say, what did Jesus say, love one another, how do we do it?

But now the question is, how does it work? How do we love one another? It begins by understanding we are members of one another. It moves on by understanding, be devoted to one another. It's a command, be devoted to one another in brotherly love.

That's how it works. Now he's, you know, he's a real smart guy and he's a psychologist, so he doesn't use those Bible words, he calls it connecting. But that's what this, I'm going to give you a little Bible study and I'm going to give you the context and the meaning of the words. God wants you to get it, and so he says you're not only a body theologically, but you're a family. And what makes for great families is deep, emotional, psychological connecting, where we heal one another's wounds as we love one another. And if we're going to do what Jesus said, if we're going to love each other, it starts obviously by understanding who we are in his community, our membership and our function, but the very first thing, then we have to be devoted to one another. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love, in very specific, tangible, concrete ways. Now, you might ask, what does it mean? I mean, specifically, what's it mean to be devoted to one another?

Let me tell you. Context here, you might open your Bibles to Romans chapter 12, and I'll just highlight as I go. The first couple verses talk about our relationship with God.

Verses 6 through 8, glance through there, talks about your giftedness. The only point I want to make is the context is we are in community. We are interdependent in community. And in that context, in verse 10, we're told, love one another in brotherly love. Be devoted to one another. The context of verse 10 is this little phrase here. It's not just be devoted to one another, but how?

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. You all already know a Greek word and you don't know it. Some of you have visited there. The Liberty Bell is there. Philo, love, Delphia, brothers, right? Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. That's this word. Be devoted to one another in Philo, Delphia.

The word Delphos, brothers, is used 250 times in the New Testament. What's the point? We're a family. We're brothers.

We're sisters. It's more than just a theological reality. We're to care for one another. We're to be touching one another. We're to be from the heart connected to each other. In fact, the meaning of the word devotion is really pretty interesting. Webster says the word devotion means to give up one's self, one's time, one's energy to some purpose, activity, or person. It's to pursue with loyalty and deep affection.

I like that. Devotion means to pursue one another with loyalty and deep affection. In fact, the meaning of this word here, it's a different. The word devotion is philo, same word love, storge. That means the mutual love. It's used in classical Greek. It's only found here, I believe, in the New Testament.

Philo, storge. It means it's translated devotion, but the idea King James tries to get his arm around it by talking about a warm, tender affection. The idea it's the kind of love that parents have for children and children have for parents. It's the kind of love that brothers and sisters have. In fact, in summary, if you want to know what it means to be devoted to one another, here's it in a nutshell. Tender family connection, one to another from the heart. Get that, okay? Tender.

You see what I'm trying to get at? Tender family connection from the heart, authentic to one another. Real live, authentic, warm, caring, you matter relationships with one another.

That's what it means to be devoted to one another. Now let me ask you before I go on. How many of you have that?

Don't raise your hand. How many of you are experiencing that at some significant level? Not perfectly, but I mean significantly. There are other believers, not just immediate family. There's other believers where you feel a tenderness and a warmth and you are connected with them from the heart. That you can sit down over a cup of coffee, but when things are really weighing you down, you can pick up the phone and you can talk to someone and you're greeted with concern and affirmation and love and follow through and maybe a note in the mail later or an invitation to get some help.

How many of you have that? That's God's dream for you. It's His will for you. It's His will for every person. That's what it means.

If we're going to obey the command, if we're really going to take seriously, love one another, God wants that for you. And for those of you that have it, it's precious isn't it? It's awesome. Now no matter how much you have, you want a little more don't you? I do. That's okay. But that's what it means. Let me show you what it looks like real specifically.

I'm just going to take some quick pictures. The first one is just from the Old Testament. If you want to get a feel for it, you know if you're sort of a word picture person, read the book of Ruth and look at the relationship between Ruth and Naomi. It's family love. It's a daughter-in-law who's lost her husband.

It's a mom who's lost her boys, her husband. And there's family love. And notice that as you read that story out of the book of Ruth, their family love transcends race. She's a Moabite. Ruth is. Naomi is a Jew. It transcends culture and even geography.

They're willing to relocate if necessary. Or another good Old Testament example is Jonathan and David, 1 Samuel 20. Awesome. Awesome passage of connection, love, family, brotherhood. I mean these are two men that love each other at a level and it is wonderful.

And notice the things it transcends. Therefore Jonathan is the king's son. He should be threatened, but he's not. Privilege. He's got all the money. He's got the family.

He's got the name. But he lays all that aside. In fact, there's a very special moment in their life where he gives away his sword, his robe, and very specific things that communicate, we're on level ground, David. And then finally, the last one, family relationship. This love is so deep when Jonathan has to choose between his father's wrath for David and his own love and brotherhood for David, he chooses God's way over his own family. See, that's the kind of love we're talking about.

I'm not talking about some warm, ooey, gooey, fuzzy little trite, superficial. We got enough of that junk. That's TV stuff. That's Hollywood stuff. That's what people act about. We're talking about the real thing. In fact, third example is just read through the book of Acts, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter six, chapter 13.

Just read through the book of Acts. Brothers and sisters loving each other. I mean, it transcends money. They just pool their money.

It's such a crisis early on. They just pool their money and just meet each other's needs. It transcends socioeconomic barriers. You read carefully, you've got people in the household of Herod and you've got slaves. You've got Jews and you've got Gentiles. You've got people who hated each other's guts, that wouldn't go in the same roof, that wouldn't eat a meal together, all this stuff.

And then when there's this family love, it transcends all that. What did Jesus say? He said, love one another.

How? As I've loved you, sacrificially, from the heart, tenderly, as a family. That can't happen if we don't know each other. The clarity is we are members of one another and now the first command, be devoted to one another. So let me ask you that second question. The first one was, remember, do you feel connected like that? Do you have a sense, that sense of moral responsibility, that sense of from the heart, are you devoted to other believers in brotherly love?

I mean, does it matter how they're doing? Did you feel the moral weight toward other believers like you would someone who's a physical brother or sister relationally or to a mom or to a dad or to a niece or to a nephew? See, what I want you to understand, the Bible talks about this supernatural community.

He's saying that we each move toward one another in connection and I need to own the moral weight of saying, if you're not loved, I may not be able to supply it, but I need to be a part of the process of you getting connected and loved. And so then the question is, what is it that keeps you? What is it that keeps me from experiencing this authentic devotion, this supernatural community? And so with that, follow along, get your pin out, if you will, I'm going to make you work a little bit because what I want to do is just do some things that are very, very simple, but let you know first what keeps us from experiencing this authentic devotion to one another. One, it doesn't happen automatically.

It's not magic. God didn't design the body where you just come to church a couple of times and all of a sudden, something happens inside. I'm just devoted to everyone in brotherly love.

It doesn't happen that way. In fact, it's so is non-automatic that multiple times in the scripture we're commanded, we're reminded to make this the focal point lest we end up with just some sort of intellectual relationship with God and with others. Notice what it says in 1 Thessalonians 4, 9 and 10. Now about brotherly love, we have no need to write to you, Paul says, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. Because in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia, yet we urge you brothers to do so more and more.

See, it's not automatic. We all need urging. Second passage, 1 Peter 1, 22 and 23, now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God.

Do you get the idea? You have the ability. I have the ability because I have a new birth to love people. But there's a command, therefore love one another how? Superficially, when it's convenient? No, authentically from the heart.

You know, it's easy to hear truth, believe it, even be moved by it, and then drift along to whatever comes next. If you've been moved today to love the people around you a little better than you have been, this series, Love One Another, provides biblical direction to help you pursue that goal. Love One Another will give you insight into issues like how to love difficult people, how to restore someone who's fallen into sin, and how to lovingly hold one another accountable. It's filled with practical truth to help you deepen relationships on every level. To take a look at our resource options for Love One Another, check it out online at livingontheedge.org or tap special offers on the app.

For more information, just give us a call at 888-333-6003. Chip, before you come back and talk about today's message, you talk about how you use a journal as part of your routine, and you talk often about how your wife Teresa has an amazing prayer life. Does she use a journal?

And if so, how does she use it? Dave, it's interesting that you would say that, because I think this is something we need to clear up about journaling or not journaling. My wife uses her journal completely different than me. She's not a verbal processor. Her verbal processing is primarily she prays for very long periods of time. She can concentrate. She pours out her heart. I always know when she's had a good prayer time because there will be this pile of Kleenexes where she's been crying. And so her journal is primarily writing down specific prayer requests. It's very brief, and it's very focused.

Mine is there's lots of words. This is what I'm thinking. This is what I'm feeling. Here's five concerns that have come to my mind that I'm distracted by, and I write each of those down and turn it to a prayer list. My point is this. Journals are a tool. It doesn't make you spiritual to write in a journal. They need to be a unique tool to help you connect with God. So it's used in a way by way of our personality and what God is doing in our life.

But what I do know, whether you write a little or a lot, whether it's more of just a prayer journal or whether it's a life journal, is there something to be said for using a tool that is tracking your journey with Christ? Left to ourselves, we will get very negative. We'll be like the Israelites and we'll forget all of God's miracles. And when we face hard things, we'll feel alone and not trust God. And over and over and over, Old Testament, what do they do?

They go back to those memorial stones. God parted the Red Sea. God gave the manna.

The water came from the rock. And I believe that that is really the role of a journal. It's just whether it's a little or a lot, it's marking some things down so that in your darkest times, you can come back and you can say, you know something?

The God who was faithful during that time is with me now. And so if even for those who've never kept a journal, I would encourage you to give it a try and don't feel like you have to write every single day, but begin a rhythm or a track record. Maybe it's two or three times a week or you do it when you're compelled or it becomes your prayer journal. But we're just encouraging people. We want you to be connected to God and you just can't say a little prayer and read a little something fast and expect to have a deep, powerful, abiding relationship with Jesus Christ.

Our heart's desire is to help you to be connected deeply with the living God. And we believe this journal could be one small part of that journey for you. Well, it's easy to be excited about our new prayer journals because they're so well done. They're beautifully bound in a couple of different colors with embossed gold or silver trimmings.

And inside, it's even better. Chip's given you a few of his journaling tips. There's a dedication page if you want to send it as a gift.

And there's tons of room for you to do your own personal journaling. For a limited time, our brand new prayer journals are discounted. So I hope you'll check them out today. You'll find all the details at livingontheedge.org.

App listeners will find them when you tap Special Offers. And for more information, just give us a call at 888-333-6003. Well, now here's Chip with a final thought. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.

Sounds kind of nice, doesn't it? But what a calling. What strong words.

They are gentle, but they are powerful. I remember studying this word, be devoted. And it literally blew my mind when I saw the strength and the commitment and the level of intensity in relationships that this word from God demands.

This isn't just how you feel about your wife or a very, very small group of very close friends. This be devoted to one another is how believers are to think about and to treat one another simply because we're in the body of Christ. This is the kind of devotion that flows out of relationships that are built not around blood relationship or common hobbies or personality chemistry. This is the kind of devotion that flows out of the common bond of knowing Christ and being committed to one another because we belong in his supernatural community, the church.

This is the kind of love that causes a person when they hear that a member of their small group has unexpectedly lost their wife, they stop their vacation, they pay that extra money to change their air flight, they fly all the way across the country, and they sit in silence in a living room. And they hear their brother cry. And they don't have words to say. And they just hug him. And they just hold him.

And they walk through the next two weeks with him. And then when they're asked, because I asked them, why in the world did you do that? And they looked at me with this quizzical look and said, it never occurred to us not to. That's what it means to be devoted to one another in brotherly love. And in this transient culture where families live farther and farther apart, if there's ever a day, brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, for us to be devoted to one another unconditionally, not based on who we really fit with, but based on the love and the bond of Christ, it's now. What would it look like today in your life, in your church, in your small group, for you to express being devoted to someone else out of the love of Christ? Can you picture it in your mind?

What would it look like? Now today, go do it. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Just before we close, I want to thank each of you who's making this program possible through your generous giving. One hundred percent of your gifts are going directly to the ministry to help Christians really live like Christians. Now, if you found Chip's teaching helpful, but you're not yet on the team, would you consider doing that today? To donate, just go to livingontheedge.org, tap donate on the app, or give us a call at 888-333-6003. Your gifts are greatly appreciated. We'll be with us again next time when Chip continues his series, Love One Another. Until then, for everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.