Learning to Experience Authentic Community, Part 2

Next is loyalty. Don’t shrink back when things heat up. Well, the story continues and David replies to him. David is thinking, Ahhhh, this is getting scary!

He says, “Tomorrow we celebrate,” I’m in verse 5 of chapter 20, “the new moon festival. I have always eaten with your father on this occasion, but tomorrow I’m going to hide in the field and I’ll stay there until the evening of the third day. If your father asks where I am, tell him I have asked permission to go home to Bethlehem for an annual family sacrifice. If he says, ‘Fine!’ then you will know all is well. But if he is angry and loses his temper, then you will know he is planning to kill me.”

Listen to this, “Show me this kindness as my sworn friend – for we made a covenant together before the Lord – or kill me yourself if I have sinned against your father. But please don’t betray me to him!” Listen to Jonathan, “‘Never!’ Jonathan exclaimed. ‘You know that if I had the slightest notion my father was planning to kill you, I would tell you.’”

Well, they figure out a plan to figure out whether it’s going to happen or not and if you skip down to verse 16, it says, “So Jonathan made a covenant with David saying, ‘May the Lord destroy all your enemies!’” Think of what he is saying. Who is one of his enemies? Boy, you know, that old blood is thicker than water isn’t true. “‘May the Lord destroy all your enemies!’ And Jonathan made David reaffirm his vow of friendship again, for Jonathan loved David as much as he loved himself.”

The reason we don’t have really great friends is the price of loyalty is very, very high. You don’t betray your friend. And most all of us will get in a situation, and I have had a handful in my life, where life heats up, I mean, it really heats up and being around you during that time when it heats up, a lot of the dirt and the yick-yick that comes with your life heating up, people don’t really want to get around you because it kind of comes off on them.

Your reputation may be being attacked and hanging out with you right now… It’s not true, but you just find a lot of people start not returning your calls. I can’t figure out why! Because some things are being said about you that aren’t true.

You might be in a horrendous relational situation. You know what? It might even be you really blew it and you sinned big time and people are judging you and just telling you, “You know what? Man, you blew it, I’ll tell you what, God is going to do this and you broke your marriage vow or you stole money from that company or…”

You know what? Real friends never, ever tell you that the sin is okay. But what they tell you is, “Man, I have to tell you, you really did screw up, but I’m here for you. How are we going to get through this? What’s the game plan going to be? You have to get right with God, you have to make it right with these people, you can make it through this. I’ll be here for you.”

That is a friend. That’s authentic community. And everyone goes through hard times. But the temptation is when things really heat up and get really difficult, the temptation is for people to back away. And I am going to play it safe.

David and Jonathan tell us, “If you’re aware, intentional, honest, available, loyal.”

And then here, you have to be vulnerable. Refuse to let fear or pride limit your relationship.

We are still in chapter 20. Skip over all the way down. It gets bad. And Saul is not a nice guy. And Jonathan and David realize that he is going to have to run for his life. And they figure out that Saul is really going to try and kill him. And so we pick up the story in verse 41 where they had this little situation where David is hiding in the brush behind a big rock and Jonathan shoots this arrow and the boy runs and they’ve got this code worked out.

So the boy says, “I can’t find it.” And he says, “Oh, it’s farther, keep running.” They get the kid out of the way and that is code for, “It’s not good. Dad is trying to kill you. Let’s talk.” And so he comes out from behind the rock and we get the picture.

“As soon as the boy was gone, David came out from where he had been hiding near the stone pile. Then David,” notice this, “he bowed to Jonathan with his face to the ground. Both of them were in tears as they embraced each other and said goodbye, especially David. At last Jonathan said to David, ‘Go in peace, for we have made a pact in the Lord’s name. We have entrusted each other and each other’s children into the Lord’s hands forever.’ Then David left, and Jonathan returned to the city.” They cried, they embraced, they verbalized how much they cared, and they allowed their emotions to be expressed. Now, you girls do this a little bit better than us guys.

The chairman of our board at Living on the Edge is a pastor and he is kind of like my pastor. And he never hangs up the phone and it’s not with a trite word, in fact, I was uncomfortable early but after I really got to know him, “Chip?” “Yeah.” “I love you. Man to man. Chip, I love you. I’m for you. You need anything, give me a call.” That’s how he ends our phone conversations. He verbally expresses his love for me.

From my background with my dad, that still doesn’t feel, there’s part of it that feels really good and there’s part of it that feels weird. Okay? The few people that I have cried with, shared with. Vulnerability is the price tag and the risk. See, vulnerability is basically just taking off a layer – appropriately, wisely, with safe people, at the right time, and in the right way – not with everyone, not all the time. But it’s the key to deep, authentic community.

And, finally, we learn to be spiritual. Skip all the way over if you will. David is running for his life and he spends about a decade dodging spears and hiding in caves and living on this promise, “God said I was going to be the king! God said I was going to be the king! I don’t feel like a king, I don’t feel like a king.” And it’s like, “Man, this is crazy!”

And so during one of his down times, we pick it up in chapter 23, verse 15. “One day near Horesh, David received the news that Saul was on the way to Ziph to search for him and to kill him. Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith to God.” He went out to find him.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Jonathan reassured him, ‘my father will never find you! You are going to be the king of Israel, and I will be next to you, as my father is well aware.’” Talk about loyalty. “Humanly, it’s my job to be the king next, but God has made it clear you’re the man and I am behind you.”

“So the two of them renewed their covenant of friendship before the Lord. And then Jonathan returned home, while David stayed at Horesh.”

Don’t be afraid to be spiritual. Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man or one woman sharpens another.” Sometimes we get in these relationships and we are going through stuff and we are in Bible study, we can talk about God.

You know what? You need to have times where you have a friend and someone is talking and you say, “Let’s pray right now.” “What do you mean? Around these people?” “Yeah, just come on. Right now. Let’s just pray.”

Or you need to say to someone, when you know what’s going on, “By the way, this verse came to my mind,” I have had someone recently just text me a verse, “By the way, I’m thinking about you,” be spiritual! Your number one goal in your friendship is to help this person become an R12 Christian, every day, in every way.

Basically, it’s: Help them trust God. Help them obey His Word. Help them do the right thing. Help them realize He’s in control. Help them realize He is going to come through. That’s the goal of your friendship! And, by the way, when that’s the goal of your friendship, all these other things come together.

Seven essentials they model of having great, deep, authentic community.

Now, you’ll notice, David and Jonathan, let’s do a little analysis here.

It was, their covenant with God was the basis for their devotion to one another. Here’s the real key: It’s their covenant with God. If you have some time and want to get the full story and read this later, it’s chapter 18 through about chapter 23 of 1 Samuel. It’s a great read.

But as you read it, over and over and over, covenant. The pact, the vow. It’s their vertical relationship with God that was the basis of the level of devotion because that’s what the trust was built on. They made a vow to God.

They said, “We are going to do our relationship according to God’s Word. We’re going to do it God’s way. We are going to be loyal, we are going to be honest, we are going to be true, we are going to be vulnerable, we are going to be committed.”

You don’t have the power to do that in a relationship apart from Christ in you.

In fact, Jesus models this in John 15:9 through 13, the very last, very last time He is with His disciples on the earth, He says, notice, He starts with His relationship with the Father. “As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you. Now remain,” or, “abide in My love.”

And then He tells them, Well, how do you do that? “If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this,” notice why, “so that My joy, may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you,” – do you get it?

You can’t love one another apart from experiencing it with your heavenly Father. Our covenant with God will determine the level of our devotion with people. Your walk with God will determine your depth with people. It’s just the way it is.

People in shallow relationship with God have shallow relationships with people! Why? They don’t have the capacity to trust, to give, to be vulnerable. You can be vulnerable if you’re secure in Christ. You can be honest and face rejection and tell the last ten percent if you know God’s got you covered. If you don’t, you have to manipulate, politick, and play games.

He finally says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” The litmus test is commitment and sacrifice for one another.

So how does it work? Jonathan and David’s relationship reveal that authentic community occurs when the real you meets real needs for the right reason in the right way.

The real you, “let love be without hypocrisy,” – right? meets real needs, “be devoted to one another,” – what? in the right way, it’s serving the Lord, “not lacking,” – right? “fervent in spirit, not lacking in diligence, serving the Lord,” and doing it in the right way, not in your strength, but His.

Finally, authentic community is the core of Christianity. I originally had in the notes, “A core,” and then I read John 17 and this is the last prayer of Jesus. And in the last prayer of Jesus, He is praying to the Father and here’s what I want you to see. He begins to pray about His – before He took on flesh, before the incarnation – He begins to pray and talk about the unity and the community and the fellowship of the Triune God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and specifically His relationship with the Father. It’s community.

God doesn’t need us to experience and give love. He is one essence, but He is three persons. And so He says - what? He prays that, “All of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You, may they also be one in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.”

Now, from our very human perspective, we can talk about authentic community and deep relationships because loneliness is solved and we will walk with God better and we will be happier and it fills our emotional tank and life is just a lot more fun to do it with people and where you’re connected and where you’re loved and all that is wonderful for us, but it’s not the most important reason.

The most important reason is the gospel’s credibility and legitimacy, according to Jesus, is based on how well we love one another and the world has every right to say, “I don’t believe that Jesus is God, that He came to forgive sins,” if His followers don’t love each other the way He loved them.

Jesus never came to start a religious institution, to have buildings built all over the globe. There is nothing wrong with those things but He said, and it’s been true of every age in every generation, “Forget whether they have buildings or no buildings, whether they use stained glass or electric guitars, whether they did it in robes or whether they hid in caves.”

When people radically, sacrificially love, and have loved, one another with vulnerability and honesty and loyalty and commitment, as unto the Lord, literally, giving their lives for one another, the world steps back and says, “The gospel is true.”

So let me give you some quick, very practical steps as though we haven’t gone over a few already, in terms of going to the next level in authentic community.

How can you experience authentic community?

One, get connected in a spiritually positive relational atmosphere. And I put the two ways: Be aware; Be intentional.

Number two, go deeper with one or two people in your group. And the way you do that is be honest, be available, be loyal.

But take someone to coffee or go afterwards or go earlier, catch dinner, and just someone that you feel like you have some chemistry with. And, by the way, you’ll get closest to them, go and ask a lot of questions. And then let them ask you questions.

Third, share and pray about a significant struggle or fear in your life with a safe person. This is the vulnerability and to be spiritual.

Just find one person that, you know, test it, but you think is going to be safe and just say, “You know what? Thanks for taking forty-five minutes for coffee. Here’s the struggle I’m having. And I’d just like to get your thoughts.” And I will tell you, God will begin to work in very powerful ways.

I want to close with a story that actually Theresa reminded me of that has tremendous impact and I alluded to. It says, “The voice on the other end of the phone was serious and solemn: “If you want to see your father before he dies, you need to get here as quickly as possible.” Those are the words that I heard as my father, eighty-five, was close to death.

“I found myself on a plane within the next two hours and then in a rental car with two close friends pulling up to Raleigh-Durham Hospital in North Carolina. I learned that my father had been unconscious for some time, and because of the pain medication, he was delirious much of the day.

“After comforting my stepmother, I entered the room, sat next to his bed, knowing this would be the last time I would get to see him this side of heaven. My dad was a good man, but deeply wounded. Although he had been a Christian since his mid-fifties, he had a difficult time communicating his feelings or ever verbalizing his love.

“I knew he cared for me deeply and that he was proud of me, but I longed to hear that from his lips. Every boy, no matter what age, yearns for the approval of their father and I wanted to have that deep, meaningful conversation from the heart with him before he died.

“It was about eight p.m. and my dad’s wife, Evelyn, (he had remarried after my mom died), was heading home after a long day at the hospital. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and a hug as she walked out, and her eyes were sad as she knew these were my dad’s last days.

“Then something strange happened. I had heard and read about it in books and doctors tell me it’s not highly unusual, but my dad awakened and was completely lucid. For the next hour and a half, he was all there and we had “the talk” that we had both desired for so many years. Dad asked about my wife and about each of my kids and their kids. He asked me how I was feeling about the big transitions in my life and what I was concerned about and what made me happy the most.

“We relived a lot of years and some of our best times together. From Little League ball games to some of the most difficult and painful events of our past – we shared hearts, man-to-man. In those last hours, my father clearly and powerfully communicated the things that were most important to him. He held nothing back. He knew he was going to die and he wanted to communicate what mattered most.”

Don’t wait until you are ready to die to begin to share what matters most with a handful of people. Don’t let anything keep you from allowing the real you to meet real needs for the right reason in the right way.