Momentum - Learning to Experience Authentic Community, Part 1

Do you wish you had a really great friend? I mean, someone that you could entrust your heart to?

Well, someone has wisely said, in order to find a good friend, you need to be one. And today on Living on the Edge, we're going to talk about how to build deep, meaningful, authentic relationships that stand the test of time. You don't want to miss it. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher on this international discipleship program, and I'm Dave Drouin. In this program, Chip continues his series, Momentum, How to Ignite Your Faith, by dialing in on what it looks like to experience true friendship. To know and to be known is a deep longing of every human heart.

But what has to happen for us to personally enjoy that kind of connection, especially in an increasingly disconnected culture? Well, that's what Chip unpacks over the next couple of programs. If you have to miss one, remember you can hear these messages anytime with the Chip Ingram app. Well, now with his talk from 1 Samuel, chapter 18.

Here's Chip. Unfortunately, in the place where God designed for authentic community to occur, people have an amazing experience. They walk into a room, they sing some songs, they sit down, they listen, they get up, they walk out alone.

We call it church. If you open the notes, I'd like to dig in with you and learn from a couple of Old Testament characters who model for us what authentic community really looks like and better yet, how to experience it. Let me give you just a quick little background. Jonathan and David are a great story. 1 Samuel 18 opens up, and it's the story of David's life and David's a little shepherd boy, and there's a big battle, and everyone's afraid of the big bad Goliath, and he's a giant, and the nation of Israel is paralyzed, and in this window of moment, a story that many have heard, this little shepherd boy takes some stones, slays the giant, becomes a national hero. After becoming a national hero, he actually is quite the musician as well, Saul, who's the present king, actually asks, well, who's your dad? He tells him, my dad's name is Jesse, and basically Saul says, I want you to stay in the palace with me.

In other words, this is a neat young man, God's hands upon his life, I want you to stick around with me. Now, in chapter 18, Saul has a son named Jonathan, and we're gonna, it's very cryptic. In fact, we're gonna go through these two men's relationship very quickly, but the principles out of it are absolutely amazing, and so in chapter 18, verses one and two, we're going to learn about the relationship between Jonathan and David, and what you're gonna see is that in this relationship, there are gonna be seven essentials of biblical community. If you in your heart wanna get connected, if you wanna learn to have deep friendships, if you wanna go beyond the superficial, I'm telling you, you can look at Jonathan's life, and David's life, and their connection, and what happens, and you'll learn the seven essentials, some very practical ways to really be loved from the heart, and to love other people from the heart.

First essential is to be aware. God orchestrates circumstances in chemistry, and you say, well, where'd he get that? Well, follow along, chapter 18. After David had finished talking with Saul, he met Jonathan, the king's son. There was an immediate bond, or literally, the text says, God knit their souls together, a love between them, and they became best friends.

From that day on, Saul kept David with him at the palace, and wouldn't let him return home. So he says, you know, God's got his hand on your life, boy, I want you to stick around. I mean, and then something happened between Jonathan and David, and I think this happens now and then, and I would say be aware, because what we have is literally, a shepherd was not like a high-class job, and he was the youngest boy of all the sons, so David is in the low, low rang of social economy of the day, and Jonathan is a prince, and he's gonna become the next king, or so everyone thinks. Sometimes you miss the greatest people God puts in your life, because you have an unconscious filter about the kind of people that you'll really connect with, and the kind of social status they need to have, or the color of skin that they need to have, or the amount of education that they need to have, or a lot of unconscious things, how pretty, or how they dress, or where they've been, and I think this is very interesting that you need to be aware that God might bring the very best friend you'll ever have from a different socioeconomic, ethnic, age background that will blow your mind, but you gotta be aware.

You gotta be open. You gotta be able to say, you know something, God doesn't see as man sees. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord weighs the heart, and he may have someone in your relational network right now, and it's not that you're a willful prejudice, I never wanna be that person's friend, you're like me, all of us are what the psychologists call, we've been socialized, and we have this unconscious box, and in our unconscious box, some people get in, and other people don't, and we are most accustomed to love people and connect with people like us. David was very, very different than Jonathan in terms of social status. Second thing we find is be intentional.

We rarely drift into authentic community. Be intentional. Look at verse three, it says, and Jonathan made a special vow to be David's friend. By the way, we're seeing him be, he's moving downward in his social mobility. He takes the initiative. He's the prince.

He's got the money, he's got the power, he's got the position, he gets to call the shots in the palace other than his dad. And he makes a special vow. That means he makes a vow before God, but what he's doing now, he's making a vow, and he's verbalizing, David, I wanna be your friend. And he sealed the pact by giving him his robe, his tunic, his sword, his bow, and his belt.

Now I wish we had about three hours, that phrase right there would make for a great sermon. If we could spend the time and talk about what would it mean for a prince to take his robe, his tunic, his bow, his sword, all the elements that reflect his power, the net net is, he's saying, I'm laying aside my power, my prestige, and my position, and I want you to know that I'm committing to you, I want us to be on even terms, and David, I wanna be your friend, and he actually verbalizes it. Friendships, you just don't drift into friendships. Making deep friendships, authentic community, has to be a priority.

You need to have what I call intentional pursuit and intentional commitment. Those are the two things that he does. Jonathan pursues David, he sees something in his heart, he sees something in his life, he sees something about David that says, I wanna get to know him better. It's not just that he's a hero and he killed the giant, there was something about David's faith, there was something about David's walk with God.

I think Jonathan, it says God knit their hearts together. It wasn't something that they produced or made happen. God orchestrates circumstances, God orchestrates chemistry, but we have to be intentional. You get around people, you can't just sort of say, well, I'm glad we're in this group. You know, as good as it is to have a small group and lots of needs, the fact of the matter is, mentoring and deeper relationships need to occur. I mean, there's only so much you can do in a group of eight or 10, and really, there's maybe one or two people in the group that your heart starts to get connected to, and you need to say to them, hey, why don't we grab coffee this week?

Or I heard that you run, tell you what, I like to run, can we go for a run? In other words, it takes intentional pursuit or it stays fairly shallow. It takes intentional commitment. Now, what I hope you're hearing is, that means probably you're gonna take some time away from something else in order to do it. And so, from Jonathan, David, we learn you gotta be aware, you gotta be intentional, and then you have to be honest.

And what I mean by this is, share the last 10%. If we had a little more time, you could see that David, go ahead and look at verse five, whatever Saul asked David to do, he did it successfully. So Saul makes him the commander of his army.

And then notice the appointment was applauded by all the fighting men and the officers. So he's becoming famous. He goes out to battles, and basically his popularity is getting higher and higher than the king. The king becomes increasingly jealous, and so he comes up with multiple ways that he thinks he's gonna get rid of him. And so he even offers, you can marry my daughter, but the real game plan is to send him out into harm's way to get him killed. Well, David keeps disappointing him because he keeps winning and winning and winning. And finally, it comes out that he wants to assassinate him.

And so we pick up the story in chapter 19. Now Saul urges his servants and his son Jonathan to assassinate David. But Jonathan, because of his close friendship with David, told him what his father was planning. Tomorrow morning, he warned him, you must find a hiding place out in the fields. I'll ask my father to go out there with me, and I'll talk to him about you.

And then I'll tell you everything that I can find out. And the next morning Jonathan spoke with his father about David, saying many good things about him. Please don't sin against David, Jonathan pleaded. He's never done anything to harm you. He's always helped you in any way he could. And then, you know, like, Father, have you forgotten about the time that he risked his life to kill the Philistine giant and how the Lord brought a great victory to Israel as a result?

You were certainly happy about it then. Why should you murder an innocent man like David? There's no reason for it all. And then Saul listened to him, and what we find out is Saul is sort of, Saul listens for a little while, and his jealousy and his fear. Saul is a great study of insecurity.

By the way, desperately insecure people have very difficult times with deep and great relationships because they compare all the time, and they're not. But this is interesting. You know, great friendships, and it goes multiple directions here.

You've got to be honest, and what we tend to do is we're honest with about the first 90%. Now, if my dad was the king, and I had a really good friend that he was going to kill, I think I would go with something like, you know, David, maybe a good time for vacation. You know, really, you ought to get out of town. You know, here's my private donkey. Here's a few bucks.

There's a resort. Why don't you kind of get out of here right now? I mean, it took a lot of courage to get 100% honest with his father, or he could have said, oh, dad, you've got to be kidding.

You know, that's not real. He went all, what about this, dad? What about this?

Don't you remember this? Jonathan told the last 10% and confronted his father with his sin, and Jonathan had the courage to tell David 100% of the truth. And that door needs to swing both ways. And what our temptation is is we tend to tell people about 90%, and then when it gets uncomfortable, when it gets right to the point where we could really get rejected, we bail out. You know, I don't want to say that, and by the way, what's usually the big white elephant in the room, all their friends see the same thing. When you find someone who tells you some really, really hard truth that hurts your feelings and your initial reaction is you want to reject them and get angry and mad, I want you to know you've probably just met one of your very best friends. Because if it's an issue in your life, almost everybody else sees it.

But very, very few people care enough and love you enough to tell you. I remember the very first time this happened to me, I got so angry. This fellow, I was in a little discipleship program and I was there all summer and we were having a little evaluation at the end and, you know, my workaholic tendencies had played out. I'd memorized all the verses.

I did all the stuff they asked me to do. I mean, I just thought, I mean, if they were gonna rank people in this little summer program, I'm like maybe a nine or a 10. Being as humble as I was, I thought probably just a nine. But down deep in my heart, I was pretty sure I was a 10.

I'm just serious. And this guy named John, he said, hey, let's go out for coffee and I'd like to tell you some observations I have about our time together here this summer. I mean, it was literally like, well, I've kind of been waiting for this moment, you know, bring it on, you know. And so he says, maybe this would help. And so he wrote down on this card Galatians 1, 10, Luke 16, 15, John 5, and if I remember right, maybe 30. He goes, I'd really like you to read these over. I said, oh, well, I will. He said, now why don't you just go ahead and read them before we talk.

I mean, only the navigators can do stuff like that. So, you know, okay, so I read them. For that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God. Next verse. How can you please God when you're seeking the favor of men?

Okay. I would not be a bondservant of Christ if I were still trying to please men. Chip, I've watched you. I think you're a people pleaser and you're very arrogant. And I don't think God will ever use your life until you address that issue.

And I wanted to get up and jack the guy right in the jaw. It's probably one of the greatest gifts God ever gave me because when the truth was known, I was a real people pleaser and very arrogant. And I bet lots of people had seen it before, but John was the first person to look me in the eye, tell me the last 10%, and give me some biblical criteria to change. You want great friends?

Tell them the last 10%. Oh, it could cost my friendship. Well, yeah, it could.

Or it could make it. Fourth we see is be available. When crisis comes, friends arrive. We find that the story continues and Saul and David are going through a number of different things. And then by verse 20, Saul's really out.

I mean, he's got the SWAT team after David. And so in chapter 20, verse 1, it says, David now fled from Naoth in the Ramah and found Jonathan. So he's fleeing.

This tells you a lot about the relationship. He finds Jonathan. And basically he says, they're trying to kill me. What have I done? He exclaimed.

What is my crime? How have I offended your father so that he's determined to kill me? That's not true, Jonathan protested. I'm sure he's not planning any such thing, for he always tells me everything he's going to do, even the little things. I know he wouldn't hide something like this from me.

It just isn't so. Then David took an oath before Jonathan and said, your father knows perfectly well about our friendship. So he has said to himself, I won't tell Jonathan why should I hurt him, but I swear to you that I'm only a step away from death. I swear it by the Lord and by your own soul. And now listen to Jonathan's response.

Tell me what I can do. David's saying, hey, man, you don't get it. He's after me. He's trying to kill me.

I was dodging spirits the other day and I ran for my life. I mean, he's after me. And his son's going, no, I've talked to dad.

There's no way he's going to do this. What happens in your friendships when two different stories come out? What happens in your friendships when you're thinking, wait a second, this is really, this doesn't make sense.

What do you do and where do you go? Jonathan's available. Jonathan listens. Jonathan basically says, you know, what do you want me to do? Basically, David's going to say, I need you to get on the same page with me and you need to find out whether this is really true of what your father's trying to do.

And I mean, he is available. There's a great proverb. Proverb 1717 says, a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity. Crisis often reveals who your true friends are. When crisis comes, there's cost. When crisis comes, there's sacrifice.

When crisis comes, the people that show up and ask this question, what can I do? I remember it was a real intense time in my life, schedule and travel and my dad was very, very sick and he didn't have much time to live. And I had a friend who, because of his business, owned a plane that he flew to different places. And I'll never forget, he said, when your dad gets near the end, you call me, I don't care where you're at, I'll come pick you up and I'll take you. You need to see your dad. You've had a long up and down journey with him. You need to see him before he dies.

And I'll never forget getting one of those calls that says, if you want to see your dad before he dies, you need to get here as soon as possible. I mean, he's not going to last probably more than another 24 or 48 hours. And I remember sitting down, and this is really interesting, I remember sitting down thinking what Gary said and then thoughts like, I don't want to put him out.

I mean, like, how much gas would it cost? And I mean, I know he but, I know he but. And I just thought, you know, he said he wanted to do it.

I just can't imagine anybody doing that for me. And I just realized, you know something, I guess I just need to humble myself and receive. And I got, I just called him by myself.

I was working out downstairs. I said, Gary, I just got a call. You know, it took me 10 minutes to work it through. And he said, get over to the little airport. It'll be 30 minutes.

I'll have you there in Durham in a couple hours. And I got in his plane 30 minutes later. And we flew in the middle of the night. And he and his son, and he said, he dropped me off in front. He says, I'll come back and get you. He said, we'll take care of the hotel.

He had rented a car, took care of everything. And I had a window of opportunity that I'll share a little bit later with my dad. Because someone, and boy, you talk about a friend, he's available.

Are you available? See, we got convenient friends, and we got real friends. You've been listening to part one of Chip's message, learning to experience authentic community from his series Momentum, How to Ignite Your Faith. Based on Romans 12, Momentum fleshes out the structure of Chip's series, True Spirituality, by exploring the lives of some of the most famous men of the Bible. From Abraham and Moses to Joseph and Daniel, Chip helps us appreciate how these guys lived out the practicalities of true spirituality. In the process, Chip will ignite the momentum of your faith journey. Momentum's one of those series you're going to want to keep handy and listen to from time to time.

So let me remind you that accessing Momentum is easy with the Chip Ingram app. Well, Chip, before you get to today's application, you wanted to talk for just a second about another real-life kind of friendship. I'm going to be back in just a minute to talk about today's program and how we can apply that to our life. But as I close the teaching time, I talked about a very good friend. The test and the quality of that friendship was sacrifice. I mean, he took out time. It cost him money. I don't know what it cost to fly a jet, but it ain't cheap.

Here's what I know. Real friends pay a price for one another because they care. Today, I want to thank God for the real friends of Living on the Edge, the real friends who, many of you monthly and others quarterly, have given generously of your time through your intercessory prayers and generously through your finances.

We are here today putting resources in people's hands here and all around the world because of real, real friends. Thank you for actually paying a price. Thanks for being sacrificial, and I want you to know God is using it in very significant ways. We really appreciate you.

Thank you for being my friend. Your generosity is so appreciated, and God is using our combined ministry efforts to make a real difference in the lives of thousands of people all over the US and around the world. For those of you who have thought about partnering with Living on the Edge, but have not yet taken that step, why not do it today?

You can make a donation or even a regular monthly commitment by going online to livingontheedge.org, or you can call us at 888-333-6003. Thank you again for your prayers and financial support. We deeply appreciate it.

Now here's Chip with his application. As we close today's program, I would remind you that I told a story about a friend who really came through for me. He was a friend because he was available.

It wasn't convenient. In fact, it was very expensive, and he did something for me that was priceless. Let me just ask you, talking about biblical community and friendship, do you have a friend like that? And maybe another question is, are you someone else's friend?

Who would call you and say, hey, I really need your help? And they just know that you would come through. And if your mind is a little foggy and some names aren't popping into it right away, let me encourage you, are you available or are you so busy that all the relationships are superficial? Well, if that's true, then we learned real friendships require intentionality.

You don't drift into it. So who are the people, just in your mind's eye right now, who are some people that you want to go deeper with? And so this week, you text them, you call them, you email them, you say, let's get together, and you take the next step toward intentionality. Or maybe it's a decent relationship and it's pretty good, but it's not this face to face, heart to heart, Jonathan and David. Maybe you need to tell them the last 10 percent. Maybe you need to have a little more courage, and the roadblock is that you've got to get more real and you need to be more honest with them.

And then finally, maybe some of you are saying, you know what? I wish I had even any of those. I don't have any friends. Maybe you need to become aware and ask God to open your eyes.

He's orchestrating circumstances. And maybe there's a friend that looks different or has a big need or comes from a different ethnic background or works in a different part of where you work or doesn't have the same hobbies. And God has prepared for you the way He did for Jonathan and David, unusual circumstances to knit your heart together.

Go be a great friend to someone and see if God doesn't give you one in return. At Living on the Edge, we want you to know about an easy way to listen to our extended teaching podcast. Hear Chip anytime on Amazon's Alexa Echo and Echo Dot. Just say, Alexa, open Living on the Edge, and you'll hear that day's extended teaching anytime you want. Well, for Chip and everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.