Relationships

THE APPRENTICE
RELATIONSHIPS
DR. JIM DIXON
2 PETER 3:8-9
OCTOBER 1, 2006

I want to tell you a story about three people—Jeff, Sarah and Zach. The story is true, and it is not a recent story. It took place a long time ago. In fact, the story really begins in 1832 at Fort Howard in the Wisconsin Frontier, which was then part of the Michigan Territory. There at Fort Howard in the year 1832 Jeff was a young soldier. He was 23 years old. It was there that Jeff met Sarah. Sarah was 18 years old, and she was beautiful. Her father Zach was the officer in charge of Fort Howard. Jeff began to date Sarah and they fell in love and Zach did not like this. He did not want his daughter marrying a military guy. He wanted his daughter to be freed up from the military life and Zach also really did not like Jeff. He did not know why, but there was just something about Jeff he did not like, probably because Jeff was after his daughter. Zach decided they could not date anymore and told Sarah she could not see Jeff anymore, but Sarah continued to see Jeff here and there. They kind of secretly met and a couple of years later they eloped. The year was 1835. In June of that year, they went down to Mississippi, and they were married there. When Zach found out he was really mad, and he felt like his treasure had been stolen from him.

Jeff and Sarah were very happy. They really loved each other. Jeff left the military. For those first three months life was sweet, but on September 1st of that same year, 1835, fever swept Southern America. Jeff and Sarah both came down with malaria. Those were the days when people oftentimes died of illnesses like malaria. They became gravely ill. On September 15 of 1835, that morning Jeff woke up and he got out of bed where he was very sick. He went over to Sarah’s bed. They were in separate beds because they were so sick. Jeff went over to her bed that morning. He took hold of her hand and he said, “I love you,” and Sarah opened her eyes and in a weak voice she said, “I love you” and then she closed her eyes for the last time and Sarah died.

Jeff would never be the same. He was just devastated. The pain was beyond comprehension for him, and he began to just kind of isolate himself. For eight years Jeff became kind of a recluse. He spent most of his time by himself reading books and studying. For those eight years he never saw Zach, though Zach had pain of his own.

After that 8-year period, Jeff decided to get on a boat in the Mississippi River and it was there on that boat where he looked across this room and, to his amazement, he saw Zach. They looked at each other and as they looked at each other the tears began to come to their eyes. They walked over to each other and hugged each other. They just held each other and cried because they both had a love in common and that love had been Sarah.

From that point on, Jeff and Zach became best friends. They became very prominent here in America. Zach ultimately became the President of the United States. His name was Zachary Taylor. Of course, he died in office and when he died that was painful for Jeff because Jeff had been Zach’s friend.

Jeff went on to be famous too. He went on to become a United States Congressman and United States Senator. Then Jeff also became President, but it was not President of the United States. Jeff became President of the Confederate States, the Confederacy. He was Jefferson Davis. When he died in 1889 at the age of eighty-one, Jefferson Davis said that he wished he had never met Sarah. A hard statement. Later in life he had remarried and had children, but he said he wished he had never met Sarah because he loved her so much, but the love was so brief and the pain, he said, was so long.

Today we deal with the subject of relationships. Relationships can bring us joy and relationships can bring us pain. We sometimes succeed in relationships, and we sometimes fail in relationships. We are the apprentices of Jesus Christ. We are His disciples, and He is seeking to grow us in this area of relationships.

This morning I have three teachings, and the first teaching is this: You were created for relationships. The Bible tells us this is true of all of us. God created us for relationships. So, in Genesis, chapter 1, verse twenty-six, the Bible presents the whole concept of the imago Dei. We are created in the image and the likeness of God. “Let us make man in God’s own image, after our own likeness.” Theologians will forever debate the nature of the imago Dei. What does that mean to be created in the image and likeness of God? But we know this. Part of what it means is that we are capable of relationship on the vertical and on the horizontal, relationship with God and relationship with each other. It is part of the imago Dei.

You go to Genesis, chapter 2, verse eighteen, and God says, “It is not good that man should be alone.” Of course, the theme there is not simply the theme of marriage and the marriage union but the fact that God wants us to come into relationship because we are relational beings.

I know many of you have probably read Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Perhaps you read it when you were in school. Perhaps you read it as a child. It is a classic of world literature written in 1719, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Of course, Defoe, who was a devout Christian, told the story of Robinson Crusoe who was shipwrecked and for years lived by himself in solitude on an island. And yet, strangely enough, the book is a masterpiece with regard to the subject of relationships. It deals with the relationship between Robinson Crusoe and God as he struggles for that relationship and then of course later his relationship with the man whose name was Friday.

In the year 2000, Hollywood made a movie called Castaway. It was based loosely on Dafoe’s book. Of course, they scripted God out, as Hollywood oftentimes does. The movie starred Tom Hanks. You will remember that in the movie Tom Hanks risked his life to rescue a volleyball. Why does he do that? Because that is his only relationship. He is all alone, and his volleyball has come ashore and Tom Hanks, who is in desperate need of relationship, begins to talk to the volleyball. He does this over a period of years and calls the volleyball Wilson. You might have noticed just a few years ago the volleyball was actually sold at auction. Some guy paid $18,400 for it, which proves the biblical proverb, “A man and his money are soon parted.”

The Bible makes it clear we need relationships. This is not earthshaking news. You know this. God created us for relationship. But here is the problem, and it is our second teaching this morning. That second teaching is this: All of our relationships are damaged. All of your relationships are damaged. All of my relationships are damaged. This is because each of us, the Bible tells us, are damaged at the core. I am damaged at the core. You are damaged at the core, and we bring that damage into every relationship. It does not matter how smart we are. It does not matter if our IQ is off the chart. We are damaged at the core.

I want you to see a little clip from a movie called Good Will Hunting.

Sean: “I thought about what you said to me the other day about my painting. I stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me. I fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and I have not thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me? You are just a kid. You don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

Will: “Well, thank you.”

Sean: “That’s all right. You’ve never been out of Boston.”

Will: “Nope.”

Sean: “So I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, I know a lot about him. Nice work. Political aspirations. Him and the Pope. Sexual orientation. The whole works, right? I will bet you cannot tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You have never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. If I asked you about women, you would probably give me a list of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you cannot tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You are a tough kid. If I asked you about war, you would probably throw Shakespeare at me, right? – ‘Once more into the breach, dear friends…’ I will bet you have never been near one. You have never had your best friend’s head in your lap and watch him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help. If I asked you about love, you would probably quote me a sonnet, but you have never looked at a woman and been vulnerable, known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you would not know what it is like to be her angel, to have that love for her be there forever, through anything, through cancer. You would not know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms ‘visiting hours’ do not apply to you. You do not know about real loss because it only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. Do not you ever dare to love anybody that much. I look at you and I do not see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky scared kid. You are a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you, but you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine and you ripped my life apart. Do you think I would know the first thing about how bad your life has been, how you feel, who you are because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Do you know what? I cannot learn anything from you that I cannot read in some book unless you want to talk about you, who you are, and I am fascinated. I am in. You do not want to do that, do you, Sport? You’re terrified of what you might say.”

Robin Williams won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his brilliant portrayal of a therapist in that movie. Matt Damon played the part of the cocky young genius janitor whose IQ was off the chart and who was so damaged at the core. Of course, in the movie Robin Williams acknowledges that he is damaged at the core, but the movie is all about relationships and letting someone in for the sake of healing.

Of course, here we are, followers of Jesus Christ. We are His apprentices. We let Him in. We let Him in, many of us, years ago. He has come into us, and we are His and we are His followers, but every day He wants us to invite Him in so to speak. He wants us to invite Him to take a look at our most inward stuff that He might begin to change us, might begin to transform us, might begin to make us the people He wants us to be. He gives us to each other in the Body of Christ that we might be vulnerable at times, that we might let each other in and that through all of us He might do His healing and we might grow relationally. The damage is indiscriminate when it comes to relationships. Every relationship, whether it is marriage, the relationship between husband and wife, the relationship between parents and children, the relationship with your boss at work, the relationship between friends. Every friendship you have, there’s damage. Every relationship with God is damaged and it is damaged, the Bible says, because of sin, because of our sin. It is damaged at the core because there’s sin there.

I do not know how many of you have really stopped and focused on Genesis chapter 3. In Genesis 1 and 2 we read about how God calls us into relationship with Him and with each other, but in Genesis 3 we see the damage. Have you really read Genesis 3, and do you understand the story? It is all about relationships and damaged relationships.

I want to share part of Genesis, chapter 3, beginning with verse one, where the Bible says, “The serpent was more subtle than any other creature which the Lord God had made. The serpent said to the woman, ‘Did God say you may not eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden?’ The woman replied, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, nor shall you touch it lest you die.’ The serpent said, ‘You shall not die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and it was to be desired so as to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and she ate. She also gave some to her husband and he ate. At once their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.

“And the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. They sought to hide themselves from the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. The Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.’ God said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat of the fruit of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me. She gave me of its fruit, and I did eat.’ The Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this thing which you have done?’ She said, ‘The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’

“The Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this thing, cursed are you above all cattle and every creeping thing. On your belly you shall go. Dust you shall eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, your seed and her seed. You shall bruise His heel and He will crush your head.’ To the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you will bring forth children, and yet the desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.’ To the man he said, ‘Because you have done this, listened to the voice of your wife and eaten of the fruit of which I commanded you not to eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you. In toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring to you. You shall eat of the fruit of the ground, for you are dust and to dust you shall return.”‘

You look at a passage of scripture like that and you see broken relationships. That is what the whole Adam and Eve story is about, sin and how it breaks relationships. On the vertical we want to hide ourselves from God, and on the horizontal we just start blaming each other. Broken relationships. Of course, today it is everywhere, even in the Christian world. Look at the denominations. There are folks who are Presbyterians and therefore hate Baptists, Baptists who hate Lutherans, Protestants who hate Catholics and vice versa within the Christian world.

I want you to hear a couple of quotes from a few famous people. First of all, Martin Luther. Martin Luther was the great leader of the Protestant Reformation and of course the Lutheran Church takes its name from him. He said this: “I pray you leave my name alone. Do not call yourselves Lutherans but Christians.” A pretty significant quote. John Wesley, who founded the Methodist movement with his brother Charles, said this: “I wish the name Methodist might never be mentioned again but lost in eternal oblivion.” Charles Spurgeon, the most famous Baptist preacher in history and one of the greatest preachers of world history, said, “I say of the Baptist name, let it perish, but let Christ’s own name last forever. I look forward with pleasure to the day when there will not be a Baptist living.” Of course, in heaven no one will be a Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, or Protestant. It is all about Jesus. We will be Christians.

The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, “Some say you re followers of Paul. Some say you are followers of Peter, or Cephas. Some say you are followers of Apollos.” He said, “Is Christ divided?” Of course, it is really not that it is a problem with denomination. The problem is some people take them so seriously. It is because of sin, and we are damaged. Even in the church, relationships are damaged.

As we close, there is a third teaching and the third teaching is a biblical prescription which Christ has given to us as apprentices. This is a biblical prescription for relational growth, for relational
maturity. This is a biblical prescription for our relationships. The prescription is actually found in two places: 1 Peter 3:8-9, our scripture for today, and in Romans, chapter 12, verses 9 through 18. In fact, the same five concepts are found in both passages, almost identical Greek words in the same tense and form in both passages. Some Bible scholars have debated, “Well now, why would that be? Did Peter have access to the Book of Romans before he wrote 1 Peter? Did Peter copy from Paul or were Paul and Peter both influenced by some traditional source or did the Holy Spirit just inspire them both identically? Of course, in the midst of their debate and discussion, they forget all about the prescription, a prescription that is so important that it is mentioned in both of these passages. It is 5-fold, and we will just look at them very briefly.

First of all, the word “homophron.” This is the first of the five Greek words in this prescription, homophron. In the RSV it is translated, “unity of the Spirit.” That is not really a very good translation. Homophron comes from “homos,” which means “same,” and “phren,” which means “mind.” “Same mind.” But the concept behind homophron is to seek common ground, not to focus on differences but to seek common ground. God is saying to us, Christ is saying to us, “If we want to grow in our relationships, you can’t focus too much on your differences. You’ve got to seek common ground.” Homophron.

There is a story in the Talmud. I think most of you have heard of the Talmud, precious to the Jews. The Talmud originally was entirely oral. It was not written down and it kind of accompanied Torah in the life of Israel. The Talmud was the oral traditions of the Jews. They are very ancient stories. From the years 70 AD to 500 AD, the Jews began to put the Talmud in writing. There is the Jerusalem Talmud and the Palestinian Talmud, also the Babylonian Talmud. Within the Talmud there are two parts, the Mishnah and the Gemara, but there are lots of stories. These stories are very ancient. They have been passed down from parent to child, from generation to generation, and some date perhaps back to the time of Abraham.

In the Talmud there is a story about Abraham, an incredible story. Abraham was in his tent in his patriarchal life surrounded by other tents and a stranger comes, an elderly man. Abraham shows him Middle Eastern hospitality and invites this stranger into his tent. Abraham invites him to come and sup, to come and have dinner, but before dinner Abraham says to the stranger, “I think before we eat, we should pray to Yahweh Elohim. We should pray to Jehovah Elohim, to the one true God, the Lord God.” The stranger said, “That’s fine, but I want you to know I’m a polytheist. I believe in many gods, and I am particularly fond of the god of fire because the god of fire keeps me warm and cooks my food.” Abraham thinks, “Oh man, I’ve got a heathen in my tent.” Abraham begins to get really angry, and he kicks this guy out of his tent. He did not even give him a bite of dinner, just tells him to scram!

A little bit later the Angel of the Lord appears. At the door to Abraham’s tent, the Angel of the Lord says, “Thus saith the Lord, ‘I suffered with that man for 60 years in order that he might come to love Me. Could you not suffer with Him one night?'” Isn’t that powerful? Is not that a great story? I think it is because we live in a world where there really is no ministry if you are going to focus on differences all the time. There are so many people out there who are just always thinking, “Does this person think like me? I only want to hang around with people who think like me.” You see that all over the place, people just hanging out with people who think identically to them. It is not the call of Christ. We are His disciples. We are His apprentices, and He sends us into the world. We need this quality of homophron where we seek common ground even for the sake of ministry.

There are other words, but we do not have time to look at them in detail, but “sympatheis” is the second word in this prescription. Sympatheis we have seen before, and from this word we get the English word, “sympathy.” It means, “to embrace the feelings of another person.” In the Romans 12 passage it is further described as, “weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice.” Of course, if we do not rejoice with those who rejoice, then we are probably jealous or we are experiencing envy. If we do not weep with those who weep, maybe we just do not want to go that deep. Maybe we do not want to share the pain. But what Jesus is saying to us is if you are going to grow in relationships, you need this quality of homophron, seeking common ground, and you need sympatheis. You need to embrace another person’s feelings. You will never grow relationally unless you do this.

The third prescription is “philadelphoi.” Of course, the city of Philadelphia takes its name from this Greek word. ” Philadelphoi” literally means, “to love a brother.” Its similar word would mean, “to love a sister.” It has to do with treating someone like family and it has to do with seeking friendship with another. Jesus is saying to us, “If you’re My disciples and if you’re going to grow in your relationship, you’ve got to befriend people. You have to offer yourself in friendship.

How many times through the years do I talk to people who say they just do not have any friends. You hurt for someone who does not have friends. You say, “Are you offering yourself in friendship? Are you seeking to be a friend to someone else?” Oftentimes they will say, “I don’t know how to do that, or I don’t have many opportunities” but I know this. As Christians, we sure should offer ourselves in friendship every day and even to non-Christians. Even the word philadelphoi is sometimes used to describe the relationship between Christian and Christian but other times it is just the relationship between a Christian and another human being. We are to befriend people, and this is the key to relational growth.

The fourth word is “tapeinophron.” Tapeinophron is a humility word, oftentimes translated, “humility.” It comes from “phren,” which means “mind,” and “tapeinos,” which means “low.” It does not mean somebody whose mind is base. It means somebody who is willing to place themselves low for the sake of exalting someone else. So Jesus is saying, “If you want to grow relationally, you can’t live to exalt yourself. You’ve got to live to exalt others.”

Who do people want to be around? People who are exalting themselves? People who are always honoring themselves? Or do not people seek out people who are focused outside themselves? Jesus is saying here, “This is your prescription, that instead of seeking to always honor yourself, seek to honor other people.” That is the key to relational growth: Seeking to honor other people. In fact, in the passage in Romans 12, it explains this by saying, “Outdo one another in giving honor.” Seek to just give more honor away than anyone around you. You want to honor people.

The final word is “eulogeo.” Eulogeo is the fifth word in this 5-fold prescription for relational growth. Eulogeo means, “to bless.” If you would grow in your relationships, learn to bless people. “Don’t repay anyone evil for evil or reviling but on the contrary, bless, for to this you have been called that you might obtain a blessing.” The word eulogeo comes from the prefix “eu-,” which means “good,” and “logos,” which means, “word.” So this word “to bless,” this word eulogeo literally means, “good word.” To say a good word about someone is to bless them. To say good things about someone is to bless them.

But the word became broader in its scope, and it meant anytime you are trying to prosper another human being, you are blessing them. This is how God sends us forth into the world and Jesus sends us forth into the world as His disciples and apprentices. He sends us forth that we might bless people.

I have a little story as we close. Some of you might remember this. July 31, 2004, there were two teenage girls right here in Denver named Taylor Ostergaard and Lindsay Zaletti. Taylor and Lindsey were teenage girls and they decided to skip the school dance that night, July 31, and to be good neighbors. They decided they were going to go in the kitchen and just bake cookies and then distribute them to neighbors with little hearts that gave a little message of friendship and neighborly love. They baked the cookies and just kind of did not realize that for most people it was kind of late. It was 10:30 when they set out to deliver the cookies. Being teenagers, they did not think of that. That is early in the night for them.

So, at 10:30 they thought that it was a little bit late but that they would just go to the houses where the lights were on and just go to the door and leave the cookies on the front porch. They did that by going to a house here and a house there. And one house belonged to a 49-year-old woman who was living alone. The lights were on. They rang the doorbell and left the cookies. This woman never went to the door. It just spooked her, a doorbell ringing at 10:30 at night. She was just spooked. She was shook and did not sleep well that night.

The next morning she went to the hospital because she was having anxiety. When she came home, she decided that after she realized what had happened and she read the note, she decided she was going to sue those girls. And so she sued them, and she won. I think the fine was a relatively small amount, but The Denver Post told the story. Do you remember what happened? People began to send in money to help Taylor and Lindsay to pay the lawsuit, to pay the fine. And the money came in. Then Taylor and Lindsay went on Good Morning America and money came in from all over the country to pay their college tuition. Some of the money also went to the Columbine Scholarship, but it’s kind of a neat story because when someone is well-intentioned and they are really trying to bless others, people want to see them blessed. Isn’t that true? When someone is trying to bless others, others want to see them blessed. God feels that way.

When we are seeking to bless others, He wants to bless us. He longs to bless us. This is His call on us. So we have this 5-fold prescription that is really pretty cool, that we would go through life, and we would seek common ground with people instead of always focusing on our differences. That’s homophron. And that we would embrace what others are feeling, weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice, sympatheis. That we would treat people like family, philadelphoi, and that we would exalt others rather than ourselves, tapeinophron, and then finally just that we would bless, eulogeo, that we would be a blessing.

We have small groups here at the church, six hundred small groups Mark Shupe was telling me this last week. That is a lot of small groups, but there are a lot of you who are not in small groups. We have small group leaders to accommodate two hundred additional people in small groups. If you are not in a small group… I think this is mostly what Jesus meant, what God means when He says, “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together,” because He calls us into relationship with our brothers and sisters. I am suggesting that God’s calling you today into a small group, like Dick and Marcia were talking about. You do not need to stay in it for 26 years, but these small groups are important.

We have the Essentials card. At the bottom you can fill that out, tear it off, and take it out into the atrium by the stage. There is a small group table there. They want to talk to you. We need more small group leaders. What a godly thing that is. We need more small group leaders, and we need more people in small groups. It is a chance to grow relationally in all of these areas and apply this prescription. It is a chance to bless and to be blessed and to get God’s blessing. This is so important. How can we be Christians and be lone rangers? God calls us into relationship with each other and I think there is nothing like a small group. It is not always easy to open yourself up and to let someone else in. Some of us are better at that than others, but it is in these ways that Christ heals and grows His people. Let us look to the Lord with a word of prayer.