Relational Risk

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Relational Risk

When I was in seminary I worked for an apartment complex tychoon. He owned 45 apartment complexes. I have lots and lots of stories from this time of my life. I changed toilet seats that no human ought to be asked to change. exterminated a hornets nest from a ladder 3 stories in the air nearly killing myself, I was using a trencher and trenched through a water main filling up the community pool with mud Two months later I broke another water main and flooded Burbank Blvd for 6 hours.

I also saw some pretty interesting people as well. One that particularly stands out was a guy who had arranged his living

room with thousands of action figures that were all bowing down to a head of Frankenstein. "I wasn't sure what ice breaker to pull out of the hat. So you like Frankenstein?" But there's one story that really sets us up well for our subject today. My boss asked that we do a mandatory inspection of all the units because his water bill was astronomical. Someone must have a leak and was not reporting it. So I started the rounds. And I get to unit 34 and I knock on the door and it opens just a crack and the security chain pulls tight and I can just see one eye poking out of the door. And through that crack in the door I was arrested by a terrible smell. I explained that my reason for needing to inspect the units. And I could tell she didn't want to let me in. She clearly seemed angry and embarrassed at the same time. But eventually I persisted and insisted that this was a necessary visit. So she reluctantly let me in. I walk in the room and the entire family room was 3 feet high in trash and rubbish. There were cats roaming around. In broad daylight I could see cockroaches skittering across the walls. The kitchen had been walled off by trash. Dirty pots and pans and pizza boxes and just trash, so much trash.

There was a trail that led through the center of the room; The

trail was just plastered matted carpet that crunched when you walked. When we got to bedroom in the back I could see the bed on which this lady slept. There was a black stain on sheets that were once white. The bed itself was missing a leg so it kind of tilted sideways. There were two bathrooms. One was disgustingly dirty but reasonably functional. The other bathroom was a different story. The bathtub was filled to the brim with cat litter. One bag upon another for years. The toilet she told me had been clogged for six months. I lifted the lid and cockroaches boiled out of it like a scene from Indian Jones. But there wasn't a leak. So I left. Now here's where the story gets interesting. Two weeks later I'm going to deposit some money at our bank. And low and behold, whose standing behind the window as the banker? This lady. Somehow she was able to put herself together, get showered and cleanup and come to work. She had this clean professional life on the front but then her home life was just a wreck. Now that is a metaphor for what every single one of us in this room is like. We all come to church and we all have some professional side; we talk, we smile, we project some image of ourselves out there. We post these things out there on facebook or instagram or twitter. But there are things about us, there are things we struggle with, there are pieces of our lives that we are not proud of, there are dark closets that we'd be mortified if someone was to see, some chapter

of the past, some video snapshot of your life you'd like never played. What if the world saw my the cockroaches in my life? What if someone captured that video from my fit of anger, or those cruel words last night and published it alongside that smiling vacation photo That's a scary thought. What if your ten year browser history was published? All your emails? What if all your bank statements were made public? What if ydour playlists or movie lists or book lists were made public?

The whole idea of having things private is that we are not comfortable with eyes seeing what's really there.

And so we all have rooms where we bar the door; lock em tight. We don't let anyone inside. Why ever let anyone in? Why ever risk a single eye ever seeing what what's in those closets? The risk of rejection is so large, let's just lock it for life and throw away the key. Done deal. But there's a problem with this. That door can only be locked from the inside. If you want to lock that door for good, then you by definition will be lonely. You can't meet people and have meaningful relationship with people from the inside the door of locked room. You can't be closed off and you can't be unknowable and experience deep, meaningful relationships. God has made this unbreakable law in the universe. You can't feel loved until you volunteer who you really are. I think this is so interesting. If you just throw out this image of yourself, and someone loves your image, your going to still feel absolutely lonely and empty. This is why some of the seemingly most loved people in the world, some who have reached the pinnacle of their career, actors, singers, songwriters, kill themselves in depression. How could they possibly feel lonely? Everybody loves them! No, that's not true. Everybody loves the image. But nobody knows who they really are. And those rare few who do know who they really are, who have seen all the ugliness have rejected them. They are horribly lonely and disconnected. It's not enough to have people love your image. It's not enough for people to love your facebook profile. In order to be relationally

fulfilled people have to know you. So this intractable law exists. In order for connection to happen we have to allow ourselves to be seen. You can't be loved until you let yourself be known. We all know this exists and so we feel torn. We feel two very conflicting feeling rising up inside of us, both of which are incredibly strong. I'm hate the feeling of insecurity that I feel when I consider letting people know who I really am. I hate that feeling of what might people think if they really find out who I am? But I hate this feeling of loneliness even worse. I see this person out there who has great relationships and I envy them. So I'm going to risk someone seeing who I really am and hopefully I won't get rejected. And this is the essence of relational risk. Let's talk about how this process of relational risk actually works. I've got this little diagram here that describes how I think about it. I'm sure this is nothing revolutionary in your thinking, but it will help create some categories of thought.

Superficiality

Here is where it all begins. Every relationship starts off on a superficial or shallow level; you don’t really know him or her and they don't really know you. You meet, you say hi and you move on – unless one of you takes it to the next level. This is really the level of cliche. You talk about the weather. This is the standard greetings. How was your weekend? Good. Many of our daily interactions with people may take place in this level. And that's actually fine; you can't be best friends with everyone, but if you don’t go to the next level in any relationship and you choose to stay superficial with all people, you will be a very isolated and lonely person.

Gathering Information The next level of relationship is gathering information. Where you work. How many people you have in your family. Where

you live. Where you grew up.

This is when you ask people questions in order to collect facts about them, like where they are from, what they do, where they went to school, their marital status, etc. Most of us have a lot of relationships at this level — basically acquaintances. These are great, but at this level you are still relationally starving and lonely. You've got to go deeper. From my observations, most people stay right here. There's very little risk here. But again, if you stay just here you will be lonely and not experience what God intends for you. Genesis 2:18 gives us some pretty profound insight into God's creative intent. When he created the man Adam, there was no other human being on earth. Now Adam probably had a superficial relationship with animals. I imagine he may have

had a little pet dog or cat or monkey. He probably said hi and the cat purred or the dog ran around in circles and wagged it's tail. But Adam could tell that a relational need was going unmet in his heart. There was no suitable companion for him. He needed to go deeper. And what did God say. It’s not good for a man to be alone. It wasn't good then and it isn't good now. You are alone if you are interacting with people at a superficial level. You are alone and it is NOT GOOD if really don't interact on a level with people much more siginificantly than with a dog or cat.

Vulnerability

Now here's the fork in the road. This is where it all hinges. So you've got some acquaintances. Your setup to go deep and get an actual relationship. But in order to do it you have to

volunteer something. You have to actually let someone know you and risk telling them something that they could potentially use against you. We talked about the intractable law exists. In order for connection to happen we have to allow ourselves to be seen. You can't be loved until you let yourself be known. And we are torn. We want to be known AND loved. But there's some really ugly stuff down there. There's some stuff down there that's pretty ugly. Your terrified at what someone might think if you really let yourself be known. What if they see the clogged toilet? What are they going to think when they see my stained matress and cat litter bathtub? What if someone found out about the fight we had last night and the words I used and the tone? What if someone knew that I struggled with same sex attraction? What if someone knew about my pornography addiction? What if I came clean about my shady business practice? What if someone found out about my past divorce and all the ugliness of my heart that came out of that?

I want to be loved but I fear I am unlovable. And like a wild animal who is terrified of people, but who is dying of thirst and necessarily needs to take water being offered to it, we slink toward other people. We risk. We say, "I'm going to risk something." We decide to be vulnerable. At first it's just dash in an a single lick at the dish and then dash away to

safety. We are testing the waters. We call this being vulnerable. The word vulnerable was originally a military term used to describe a walled city that had a point of weakness; it meant, “able to be wounded or hurt.” It's the opposite of impenetrable. What guy in the room likes the idea of being vulnerable? Who here wants to open themselves up so they are "able to be wounded." Yuck. Nobody. But again, if you want to love, if you want to be loved, you have to be vulnerable! You have to let go of who you want to be and be who you actually are to have connection. C.S Lewis has so well said,

So what to do? We risk? We have to or we turn into that! And here we have one of two possible outcomes. Let's continue our chart here. Perhaps you let someone in and they see the bathroom and they say, "Sick! You live in this? I can't believe this is who you are. I thought you were a clean, professional banker. I want nothing to do with you." We call that rejection.

REJECTION

Rejection can come in a lot of different forms. We may get laughed at, criticized, rejected, ignored, shamed. It can be nothing more than a nonverbal, nonapproving upturned eyebrow. But one way or another we sense that we have been rejected.

So the natural response when we’ve been rejected is to . . .

SHUT DOWN

We don’t like this feeling of rejection so we decide then and there that we will NEVER go there again with that person (or even worse - with people in general). In choosing this response over and over again, we will become . . .

IMPENETRABLE

We tend to build walls against people when they’ve hurt us. But if we do this too much and with too many people, guess what? We’ll refuse to ever reveal anything. We lock all the doors and forever stay . . .

SUPERFICIAL

which means we remain in a state of loneliness and isolation. This is not God’s will; He made us for relationship. It's not good that a man should be alone. And all lonely people would agree with God at this point. This is not good. But at least it's safe. Back to green pastures of safety. Let me ask you - I actually want a show of hands here, "How many of you have been deeply hurt by someone and you can relate to this feeling?" In at least that relationship, you dare not ever again risk telling something personal about you. You've been hurt too deeply. This is universal. Have you ever noticed, if you can ever get a person to talk about true love they'll tell you about their most excruciating

heartbreak. When you ask being about true connection and real relationships, they'll tell you about rejection. These are the cries of men and women who long for it, who want it more than anything else, they've tried and they've been hurt. This is all of us.

Sadly, when we decides (and it is a decision), to live like this, we tend to live a bitter, lonely, sad existence. And, if this continues for a long time, we will usually develop a hardened heart. Consider the profound words of

The context here is warning about the ultimate sin of unbelief so there is not a direct connection to what we are talking about but there is a principle that definitely applies. Because

all sin is a form of unbelief. And there are relational sins of unbelief too. Notice the principle of the text. Here's the principle: the fellowship of other believers, the encouragement of other believers is necessary to keep you from being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. We become hardened when what? What does the text say? You become hardened when you buy the lie of sin. What lie is your heart telling you after you have been wounded by someone. "Screw you." I don't need people. I'm perfectly fine in my own shell. There's no such thing as real love in relationships. I'll never open myself up again. That's actually a lie. I can experientially tell you it's a lie. There is real love in relationships. I can tell you about it. But if you buy that lie; if you harden yourself. If you wall yourself up, you will shrivel. You need people. The longer you go without being real with people, the longer you lick your wounds, the more painful it becomes. The more your world resembles you alone in castle with thick walls and a moat and sharp sticks. And some of you are like this. It's sad. I can't break in. Your acquaintances can't break in. You don't show emotion. Even your family can't break in. Nobody knows you. But what does the text say? There's a bit of irony here: the one thing that protects you from the lie is getting close to that very thing you are scared of. The fellowship of other

believers, the encouragement of other believers is necessary to keep you from being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So there's an application here both to those who are isolated and those who are not. To those who are isolated and sense yourself being hardened, you need to run to the very thing that scares you! You to run to people who can encourage you and can help you from being further hardened. And to those who are not in isolation, look for those who are in isolation and be that voice of encouragement. You may be the rescue they need. You may be that one experience they need to bolster their courage, to break the power of the lie of sin that says, everyone is out there to hurt you. If they have a set of eyes and a warm smile caring for them, that lie is shattered. You see risk doesn't have to end in rejection and superficiality. There is another possible outcome:

ACCEPTANCE

This is the other possible outcome of vulnerability. When we share something personal and it is received with: attentive listening, sincere questions, good eye contact, shared emotion, we feel the safety of offering more.

We took a relational risk and it’s now paying off by bringing us into closer relationship with another. When we feel accepted, this causes us to offer more

SELF-DISCLOSURE and more VULNERABILITY

We share with more depth and meaning, we share our hopes, we share our fears, we share our deep feelings, we share our desires – significant things that reveal our true selves. We make statements like, “I feel like I am really needing help as a father or mother. I'm not doing a very good job. I feel so overwhelmed and I'm really struggling. I am not handling stress very well. The intimacy we experience in our home is really concerning to me. . .”

As we feel known and understood by another, we experience what the Bible calls, AGAPE LOVE, unconditional love. This is a love with no strings attached. It’s a love that doesn’t say, “I love you if (only if)” but says, “I love you, period.”

Agape is not based on anything we do or don’t do — it’s unconditional.

ACCEPTANCE

Now this is self enforcing because as we experience this kind of love, we set others up for other people disclosing to us as well. They open up about themselves – it’s a two-way process to be truly vulnerable. They see how messed up and broken we are, so they feel more free and able to risk sharing things about themselves. Vulnerability encourages vulnerability.

SAFETY

Notice that in the end both people up in a safe position. One is safe in superficiality and incredibly unfilled. The other is safe in relationship and truly fulfilled. Now those are about as opposite as it gets. What's the guarantee that you will end up in the second place and not the first. Here's the answer: There's absolutely not guarantee. That's the whole point. You can't guarantee anything. It's risk. It's relational risk. Okay so that's basically how the process works.

The Gospel Now here's where this message is going. So far, everything I've said is basically agreed upon by all people, secular,

Christian, etc.. Nothing I've said is really controversial and neither is it revolutionary. It's just basic relationships 101. But let me explain something. This is really impossible without Jesus Christ. I have read and listened to my fair share of secular psychologist explain how relationships are supposed to work. It's one of my favorite things to me because I think, "These people are very smart; much, much smarter than I am." But here's the deal: I have a trump card. I know without a doubt that the gospel is the answer. That's not an arrogant statement. It was shown to me. I didn't figure it out. I stumbled blindly upon it. I know without a shadow of a doubt. I've seen it work a thousand times both in my life and in the life of others. So that's my advantage. But I'm interested: let's see what kind of solutions these super smart people can come up with if you take God out of the picture. And so you take these great minds and let em loose. And it is so incredibly interesting to me. Because typically they absolutely nail the problem. They deconstruct all these feelings we have and identify why we respond the way we do. They do a great job of describe the source of our emotions. They ahve some masterful insights into motivation. But they truly have no solution. Their solutions are so powerless.

I feel like they are NASA engineers giving me a 50 page

report of why my car is having problems. Yeah, you see this CAD drawing here of the lifter on cylinder number 4. We used laser telemetry to identify a crack in the body. See here we 3D printed a model of the problem. So what your going to need to pull the head, machine a new part and reinstall making sure the tolerance and torque specs are all perfect. Got it?

And then they hand me a plastic Fisher Price screwdriver and say, "Good luck." They know what's wrong but they don't have the tools to fix it. This to me is the single most compelling apsect of the gospel. It gives us real answers to these problems. It gives us robust tools. I mean real answers. Answers that are deep and compelling and satisfying (deeply satisfying). Scary satisfying. Far more satisfying than we were even looking for. We were ready to settle for okay, and God is aiming for a level of satisfaction that blows our minds.

The Best the World Can Offer Now I don't want that to just be words. Think about it. What is the best thing you can do without the tools of the gospel? Let's put yourself in the position of the person listening to a

person being honest. They are giving you glimpses into all those dark closets of the heart. They are risking. They show you the cockroaches in the toilet. They show you the pizza stains on the blouses? They lift up their sleeve and show you an infection growing from the unsanitary living conditions. They are showing you ugliness. They are being incredibly vulnerable. They are putting it all out there. Without the tools of the gospel what are your options? You can say one of two true things: Here's the first true thing you can choose to say: "You are a sick human being. Seriously, that is gross." That's the rejection model. Even a secular pschologist knows that isn't going to help anything. That's why people are messed up. Because they've been hearing that their whole life. The only thing you got going for you in that approach is that, well, it's true. They are disgusting. Again, without the gospel, you only have one other true thing you can choose to say: "Oh honey, We are all bad like. I know it looks bad, but look, and you pull up your pant leg and you show them the infection on your leg. You pull up your phone and show them some pictures of your apartment which has messes just like the one she has. You see honey, you think you are the only one out there who is nasty. We are all nasty. This is true and offers a certain level of feeling better.

Pschologist have to build off that in some way and so they say things like, "Honey, if you want to fix your problem, you have to start with loving yourself just as you are." You can't love others until you love yourself. You have to silence those screams inside you. You have to learn to love cockroaches. Your sheets even though they look dirty are clean. Cat litter in the bathtub has certain benefits. Focus on the benefits. And what ends up happening is a redefinition of clean and dirty. "Honey, this isn't a dirty house. Don't feel bad about your house. It's really beautiful in it's own way." I suppose that would probably make that person feel slightly better. It does. But that is all the world can offer. That's it. Now compare that sad, sad reality with what the gospel says is true.

The Gospel's Solution - God's solution! Let's recycle our quote from last week.

Here's what the gospel does to us personally. When we let God into that bathroom what does he say? Hey, I know the tub is full of catlitter and that's what your all embarrassed about. Yeah, that is kind of gross. But he says, "I hate to say this but it's way worse that that. You have a serious moisture problem. See that toilet there. It has slowly been leaking for years and it's rotted through to the floor joists and has been leaking toxins for years. Their giant plumes of mold in the crawlspace. The cat litter can be cleaned up in 30 minutes. That is nothing. The bigger problem is going to take a demolition grew weeks to repair and hundres of thousands of dollars. He's sees it all for what it is. Yep, this is far worse than you thought.

But he's got real tools. He's got real resources, deep pockets. He's going to take it upon himself to fix it. We can't fix it. We are penniless 4 months behind on rent. We can't invest a penny into the problem. But God says, "I see the full extent of your problem. You have broken the rental agreement and contract in every way. I could legally file a class action lawsuit against you. But, I won't. I'll absorb the injustice. I'll absorb the cost of restoration. And I'm going to remodel this whole place." This is what I mean when I say the gospel has real tools. The gospel can do something secular humanism cannot. Secular humanism either has to acknowledge the severity of your sin and reject you. Or it can downplay, understate, minimize your sin and "accept you" because after all we are all human. After all misery loves company. But the gospel can do something infinitely more satisfying. It can call a spade a spade. It can be more honest that you can even be about the seriousness of the problem. And what God can do and has done is love you by using his resources to restore and remodel and remake. He can look at the problem in all its terror and say, "I am going to fix this problem personally. I am going to get involved at the height of the corruption."

What does that mean? You have received reconciliation through whom? Through Jesus Christ. Do you know that God wouldn't love you, in fact he couldn't love you, if he didn't die for you. He can't love the unlovable. God is under the same laws as everyone else. He made the laws reflect his character. God can't look at the clogged toilet and say, that is so beautiful. He won't stoop to that. He won't pollute true beauty by pulling up sewage and comparing sewage and resplendent beauty and say, "You know they are both beautiful. No they are not." So that is how it works for us personally. That's the basic gospel message. But it has such radical impact on the way we can relate to one another and build real and meaningful relationships.

We can go through this chart and because of what Christ does for us, we have real tools, robust tools to enter into real relationships with people. We have our disposal contractors who can come in jackhammer things out and re-tile floors and frame in walls, and bring in dumpsters and do real things. Let's remind ourselves of the wonderful truths of Ephesians.

So he's saying, listen, God is in the process of cleaning out your kitchen and remodeling your apartment. Don't continue to throw pizza boxes on the floor after he just got done cleaning up all the old ones. That makes him sad. Don't you care about all the work he just got done doing? So that's the first part of the verse. But now look at the second part:

Here's where the rubber meets the road in the relationship. When someone opens up to you and risks telling you something ugly and nonflattering, the gospel gives you tools to deal with that moment of awkwardness and vulnerability. We can look at the plugged toilet and say, "Man that is pretty gross. I need to go in the other room, I'm about to gag." And we call it for what it is. That is actually gross. But we are no different. "So hey, my name is Jason. I'm in unit 24 upstairs. You think that's bad, you should have seen my shower. But guess what, my wonderful landlord came in and retiled it and gave me a whole new bathroom. Seriously, you should come look at it. You won't believe it. I have some before and after pictures that will blow your mind. And you know what. He'll do the same for you. "Be kind to

one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Hey, let me introduce you to the landlord. We can be so thankful for our landlord! Any other landlord and we would have been cast out onto the streets, would have filed a class action lawsuit against us and had our income garnished until we died." We've abused him so seriously. But he not only forgave us, he's promised to finance and fix it all. Can you believe it? I love him so much?" Do you know I had him over for dinner last night? Let me have you over to my apartment and I'll show you what he did for me and get you excited about what's coming. I'll introduce you to him. The gospel is simply having the humility to go to the landlord and admit you need him. He's got all the resources. When judgment comes, when the landlord finally decides to do a mandatory inspection and hold everyone to the terms of the contract, will he find you in your filth or will he find you living in the room he prepared for you? And do you see how the realness of the relationship and the love and the acceptance and the excitement about true change exceeds, abundantly exceeds, anything this world has to offer. What a glorious God we serve!

Application in Prayer

So I want to enter into a time of reflection. In just a moment we are going to pray silently while Matt plays in the background. But I want to give you a few things to think about. I want you to perhaps think about an area of your life that you have not made known: Maybe you feel God is wanting you to risk more. Is there something you are too afraid to tell people about? Is there something you are too afraid to vocalize? Does your fear of what people might think prevent you from really getting close? Is there a relationship you feel God is wanting you to pursue. Pray to him about that. Think about your closest relationship. Are there areas that are out of bounds? Are there things you have agreed, you just don't talk about? Why is that?