From Regret to Wisdom: The Journey of Trust

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, I need to make a disclaimer Before I tell the story I'm about to tell. I've already paid my dumb tax on this one. All right, you don't have to come up afterwards and tell me all the things I did wrong in this story. You don't need to send the email. You don't need to say how stupid could you be. I've already gone through with that. I've already gone to therapy for this story. We're good to go all right, and I know some of you are going to totally disobey that and send me the email anyway, especially those online who think they get a pass on that because they're not here.

Speaker 1: 0:31

But shortly before my wife Joy and some of you who met her came over to the US from the Philippines, I decided that I needed a second car, because now I'd have two more stepons and four of my own kids and a wife, and so my little Hyundai Sonata wouldn't fit all of them, and so I decided I need to do what every good American dad would do and buy a minivan. And so I looked as the most reliable place to look for online to buy a van Facebook Marketplace, and so I went on there and I saw one. I saw this Hyundai Odyssey that looked good, had low mileage, and I saw the guy who was selling it. Now, it didn't matter to me that there was no reviews on the guy, it didn't matter to me that apparently he had never sold anything before on Facebook marketplace. I knew this was the vehicle for me and so I drove to the south side of Chicago and I went there excited about seeing this van, and sure enough, it pulled up. I mean, if there is a van of all vans, it was this van. It looked beautiful, it had all the bells and whistles from 2011. I mean, it was amazing. It had one of those video screens that came down so your kids can just zone out and not pay attention to you for the rest of their lives. I mean, it was even kind of like tricked out inside with all these neon lights and I thought this is the van for me.

Speaker 1: 2:02

The guy said let's go for a test drive and we went for a test drive and I thought it was a little strange that he said not to go on the highway and so we just stayed on the little, just normal roads. We did about a block around and I noticed a light or two flickering but I thought, no, that's probably just needs a new light bulb, no big deal. And then, after driving it, I asked him so how much? And he gave me a price $3,000 below Blue Book value. I thought, god, you have blessed me, the heavens have opened up and you are here in my midst. God, let's go for this. And he said just let me know.

Speaker 1: 2:38

I went back home and I thought, well, I better buy this thing before anybody else gets it, because I've gotten the best deal anybody's ever gotten on a car. And so it didn't matter to me that I didn't know the VIN number or that I hadn't really looked up the Carfax report. I knew God was blessing this, and so I called him up. I said I'm going to buy the van and he said okay, you need to pay in cash. And I thought, no, that's a little weird, but he probably just doesn't like checks. And so I went to the bank, got a big wad of cash, stuck it in my pocket, went back to where he was and I said bought the car. And I said if I have any questions, can I contact you? He said, of course you can contact me, drove off and things were great, and then I was going to ask him a question. I noticed on Facebook he was no longer active and there was no profile for him and I thought, oh, that's a little weird.

Speaker 1: 3:32

And then, a couple of days later, the battery died and I thought, okay, must have just had an old battery. So I replaced it and it worked for a while and then joy came and my life was all better and fulfilled and everything it was ever meant to be. And her step-sons came and I picked them up from the airport. But then the next day, actually after speaking at Madison Church we had driven here, came back and I was driving in near our neighborhood and I stopped at a stop sign and when I stopped and I stopped at a stop sign and when I stopped, the car went dead altogether I called AAA and they came out and they said it's much worse than you could possibly imagine.

Speaker 1: 4:27

They towed it to the car repair place and the guy looked in and he said you know, there's a couple of things going on. One, the low mileage you thought was low mileage is actually 200,000 miles more than you think it is, because he rolled back the odometer. And two, your engine is completely dead. Yes, you can pray for me later and you need a whole new engine, which was almost as much as the car itself. And so I thought okay, I'm too far in, I might as well just buy a new engine, it's fine. But then a few weeks later the exhaust pipes weren't working. And he said and so I brought it back to the shop. And the mechanic said and you know what they did here? They took out all the expensive shop. And the mechanic said and you know what they did here? They took out all the expensive materials, all the expensive elements and they sold it. And now you basically have just these shells of exhaust pipes. That's going to be another $5,000 just to have this car road worthy.

Speaker 1: 5:19

I was asking God to take me in that moment, to come and just bring me to his presence. But in that moment I realized just bring me to his presence. But in that moment I realized I have to scrap this car, the car I had trusted, the deal I thought was going to be good. It wasn't, and the whole thing broke down. And not only broke down, it wasn't viable to continue with. Now here's my point, and I actually do have one.

Speaker 1: 5:45

A lot of us are like that in relationships we start off and there's all the bells and whistles. This person's honest, this person's cool, this person is engaging. And you go into this relationship maybe it's a romantic relationship and you think this is the guy, this is the woman for me. They are so kind, they are so amazing, they just they're so eloquent, they got all the bells and whistles. Now you may notice a few things along the way, a few flickers of light. You may have had some warning signs. I mean, you didn't even check anything out about them.

Speaker 1: 6:21

And then you get married or you commit to a long-term relationship and you open up the hood and you see all sorts of disasters under it. And now you're a few months, a few years, sometimes even a few decades in and all the thing is broken down and with it your trust has been broken. You know, as we continue in this series called trust, we have to, as we figure out okay, what do we do with this thing in relationships? We have to figure out a way to move forward, to understand, okay, we have all these issues that we've had in life with relationships. We have all these bad stories of trust being broken, and so how do we move forward when we've experienced that? How do we trust again. Now some of us would say like I'm not going to trust again, I'm going solo the rest of my life. But the problem is we're wired to connect and if you try that method, you may avoid relationships, you may be functional, but you will not be fulfilled, because God wired us to connect. It is not good one of the first things in the Bible. It is not good for a man or woman to be alone.

Speaker 1: 7:47

I've been watching in my binge watching of a show. This show called Alone. Has anybody seen Alone? It's where these 10 crazy individuals decide that the best thing they can do in life is to be dropped off in the middle of one of the most dangerous spots in the world whether it's a freezing temperature in the Arctic, or maybe it's Patagonia, wherever it is where there's predators and just terrible elements, and they have to survive and the goal is that whoever survives the longest before tapping out gets $500,000. I mean, these people are insane, but as I've watched this and watched the different seasons of it, what is fascinating is the reason most people tap out and say I can't handle this anymore. Isn't because they're starving, isn't because they're too cold, isn't because they're too hungry. No, the number one reason is that they're too lonely, that they don't know what to do when they don't have human connection, and they long for connection.

Speaker 1: 8:55

You know, the same is true with me in that car. I can't say I'm never going to drive a car again. I have to learn to trust cars. And so you have to get back into the game, and some of you have been just staying back, holding back, not trusting again. But God says it's time to get back in the game. But this time, as we get back in the game, there's some new things you need, some new building blocks you need and the first is this, because, let's be honest, the first ones didn't work right. The first building blocks we have don't always work. But the first building block you need is spiritual discernment. You need discernment this is what we talked about in the prayer series that we can actually tap into the voice of God as we communicate with him, as we listen to his spirit.

Speaker 1: 9:42

Now the problem is is most of us don't think we can. That's only left to the people who have the gift of discernment. Some people do have that gift. It's a special gift that the Holy Spirit gives some people. My wife, joy, has it and it's so annoying being married to somebody with a gift of discernment, by the way but she has this gift and I remember not too long ago we were with a group of people and somebody just came up to us and said hi, and we had a nice little, very surface-level discussion. I thought this person was extremely nice and Joy said she's dishonest. I said how did you get that from hi, my name is and she said I'm just telling you she's dishonest, something's dishonest about her. A few weeks later, we realized that, even though she had told us she was single, without kids, she was actually married with two kids and had abandoned her family. See, joy has this gift of discernment, but not all of us, and most of us don't have this spiritual gift of discernment.

Speaker 1: 10:52

But we all have access to discernment. James says this if you need wisdom, ask our generous God and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking, but when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. In other words, james is saying you have access to the very voice of God when it comes to relationships. You have access to understand what God would say about the person or persons you're trying to enter into a business deal with or a friendship with or a romantic relationship with, you ask God and he's going to give you wisdom. It's what I like to call whispers of wisdom from God. And if we live in a state of discernment, of relying on God God, I don't know about this person, I don't know whether I should trust them or not. God, would you show it to me? He will. Sometimes it will come just in a time of prayer, as you're in solitude just asking God and his spirit will say yes or no, but more often than not it will just come with a little nudge while you're interacting with that person.

Speaker 1: 12:01

A few months ago, I was talking with a neighbor across the street. He had recently moved in and he wanted to become better friends with me and he was super nice. I mean, he was incredibly nice. He was one of these super outgoing guys. He loved to kind of goof around and he was really actually fun to be around. But each time I was with him there's just a little nudge and I can't fully explain it. Maybe you know that nudge where it's like this is something off. I can't put my finger on it, but there's just something off, and that was the Holy Spirit nudging me, saying stay away, jason, stay away. And about a month later the cop showed up to the house and he was escorted out for domestic violence.

Speaker 1: 12:49

There's a whisper of wisdom from the Spirit of Truth. Jesus said when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will bring me glory. By telling you what he receives from me, he'll bring me glory. So building block number one is discernment.

Speaker 1: 13:07

Building block number two is you need a trust committee. You need a trust committee because it's one thing to rely on discernment, but we don't always see it, we don't always hear it and there's things just blocking us for whatever reason. And so we need people in our lives that form what I call a trust committee that can see things about potential relationships that we're going to engage in that we can't see. Should I date this person? Should I marry them? Can I trust my son yet again after what he did to our family? Should I go into business with this person or not? And we just can't see it fully. We have blind spots.

Speaker 1: 13:45

Proverbs talks about these committees. Listen to a couple of verses from Proverbs 15, 22. Plans go wrong for lack of advice. Many advisors bring success. And then Proverbs 24, 6. In a multitude of counselors there is safety. So let me ask you do you have two, three, four people that when you are just unsure of, not just with relationships but just in life in general, when you're unsure of what way to go or not go, that you can just say can you just show me? I hesitate to share this story because you'll think that I should never interact with a car again.

Speaker 1: 14:27

But another interesting thing happened with a car of mine this past week. I was rushing all over because when you have this amount of children that I have, you have to rush all over. You essentially are their Uber driver, not their father. And so I was rushing all over and I told my stepson I'm at karate with your younger brother and I'll rush back home. You have music to go to and I'll pick you up, but please be ready outside, because we don't have time for me to go in. And sure enough, as any 15-year-old would do.

Speaker 1: 14:59

When I got back he had gone off into la-la land and wasn't outside, and so I was so annoyed I just got out of my car, ran inside, left it running and my seven-year-old stepson was in the back. I got my older stepson out of the house and we were walking down the steps to the driveway and I saw my car, with my seven-year-old stepson in the back, just enjoying the ride, going straight for my garage. I had left it in drive and it was one of those moments when you realize there is about a crash, there's about to be a crash and there is nothing I can do about it right now. And sure enough, the car went straight into the garage and $4,000 later I'm getting a new garage. It's amazing, but here's the deal.

Speaker 1: 16:01

You have to have people in life who say you're about to crash here, you're just along for the ride and in the back backseat and you think everything's great. You think that this relationship you're about to get in or are in right now is delivering all you want. But it's not Warning, warning, warning, get out, get out of the car. You can't trust this person. You can't trust this person, otherwise you'll crash. I needed my trust committee. You need your trust committee.

Speaker 1: 16:31

Third building block we need is this is self-awareness Self-awareness. We need to be aware that all of us have trust issues on some level and they come in different forms, but we all have trust issues on some level. Paul writes this, and this verse applies to all of life, but I'm going to apply it to relationships and trust. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is his good, pleasing and perfect will. I think one of the things that Paul alludes to here is that we all have patterns, that we fall into, negative patterns, and if we fall into those, we conform to a way of thinking that does not work. A lot of those patterns that we develop over time are from our trauma in our past our trauma from relationships, our trauma from early childhood, our trauma from parents who neglected us in some way, a trauma from a past marriage, maybe even, or a past relationship that was hard. And what ends up happening when these patterns come into our life that we develop? Our trauma blocks our trust. Our trauma begins to block our trust and we develop patterns of relating with people, and I'm just going to mention a few. There's way more than this, but I've noticed about three different, very common patterns of people with trust issues, which is all of us. The first is this Some of you are avoiders.

Speaker 1: 17:58

You're done with people. You're like the world would be better if it was just me and nobody else. You're like a friend of mine who once told me you know what I would love to do. I'd love to just buy a little house, build a little house in the woods, have all my books and never interact with humanity again. But some of you are like that. You know, I've been hurt, I'm done. I'm not stepping into relationships or if you do, it's just very surface level. But some of you are just the opposite. You're a clinger. You're a clinger. Somebody breaks trust with you over here and so, okay, that relationship doesn't work. Who's next? And just go and cling to them.

Speaker 1: 18:42

I love my dog Jack and I apologize if your name is Jack, but that's the name he came with. Love my dog Jack and I apologize if your name is Jack, but that's the name he came with and he always. He's a golden doodle, but he's more golden retriever than poodle, so he has. He's an emotionally needy dog. I know some of you have emotional support dogs. I have emotional needy dog. He always wants to be with me.

Speaker 1: 19:03

It's very annoying when I'm on video conference calls for for work, and I'm saying something important, and this dog jumps up on my lap and introduces himself to my boss and executives at my company. But one of the things that I thought until recently is that Jack was committed to me, that I was the only one he loved. But sure enough. I mean, if we're in a room, a group of people, he will come to me first and he will come up onto my lap. He'll nudge me to pet him some more. He'll want to just cuddle up with me. But that dog, if I ignore him, does he just sit there and wait for me to come back to him? No, I've broken trust with him. He'll go to the next warm body and jump up on them and cuddle with them as if I was never in his life. He's cheating on me all the time.

Speaker 1: 19:54

But so many people are like that in life. They get hurt over here and they just say, okay, I'm going over here, I'm going to another relationship, a third relationship, I'm going to trust somebody else again and again. And we get hurt again and again and we don't know why. It's because we're just clinging to whoever and whatever will pay attention to us. So we have clingers, we have avoiders, but some of you are transferers, in other words, you take the trauma from whoever did trauma to you and you project it on the next person. It's the person in a relationship, the wife who says you're just like my dad to her husband. It's the boss I once had who had all sorts of issues from his family growing up and couldn't trust anybody, and so his way was always to lash out. And so he lashed out on his employees, and every year about 75% of the staff turned over and many of them had to go to therapy. It happens with institutions too. You can be hurt by a church and go to the next church and expect the same hurt to happen. You transfer one thing onto another, whatever it is transfer, avoid or clinger.

Speaker 1: 21:22

We all have to be aware of where we fall, where our trauma blocks our trust. Final building block I want to mention and there's way more building blocks than this but is that we need to have a trustworthy life. You and I, if we're ever going to engage and try to discern who is trustworthy in our lives for a relationship, we have to be trusted people ourselves, because we can't discern who is trustworthy if we're not trustworthy, If I'm not honest. I won't be able to know what an honest person looks like If I'm not reliable. I won't know who a reliable person is. If I'm not compassionate, I won't be able to identify compassionate people. See, trust goes both ways and we have to recognize okay, where's my role? What am I like? David wrote this search me, god, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting God searched me. Where am I not trustworthy? What are the issues in my life that I need to develop so that other people can trust me?

Speaker 1: 22:38

The writer of Hebrews says this but solid food is for the mature who, by constant use, have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. I think what the writer is saying there is you won't be able to distinguish a trustworthy person from an untrustworthy person unless you have become mature, unless you have become trustworthy yourselves. So we need new building blocks in our relationships. We need new building blocks to be able to discern who it is we can trust. New building blocks to be able to discern who it is we can trust. But we also need a new set of questions that we can ask to ourselves and to the people around us. And the first question is this do they see me? When I'm engaging with this person, I'm deciding whether or not I'm going to trust them. Do they actually see me? I'll never forget.

Speaker 1: 23:29

There's a friend of mine that I met with every other week for about 15 years and we did life together. We really just were very vulnerable with each other and we opened up with each other. Then, at one day, this friend of mine said to me and then at one day, this friend of mine said to me I can't do this anymore. I said, wow, that's strange why? He said because every time I share one of my burdens, every time I share one of my issues, you take that issue and you tell me a story about you. You don't see me. There's a lesson I'll never forget.

Speaker 1: 24:10

Paul says this carry each other's burdens and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. And so the question you have to ask when it comes to a person you're deciding whether or not to trust is is this person able to see my burdens and handle my burdens? Will they be able to carry them or are they going to drop them? Are they all about them or are they looking at me as well? Will they really step into my shoes when I don't know what to do next, or will they just quickly jump to a solution? Or will they really engage with me when I share the worries I have, or will they just brush them off as no big deal? Will they carry this problem and this issue I've shared with them in deep vulnerability, or will they share it with whoever is listening and break our confidentiality? Will they carry my burdens or will they drop them? See, ultimately, that question of do they see me is a question of am I safe with them? Because safety is at the core of trust.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Henry Cloud, who you've heard much of this sermon series is based off a book he wrote, trust, and if you read any book this year, just read that book. It's amazing. Henry Cloud writes this. The crucial question we ask before we get involved with a person or situation is this is it safe? We long to feel safe and secure, and trust is the currency that brings those feelings about in our lives. In other words, safety comes by seeing. It's having the eyes of Jesus Matthew 9, 36,. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them. Jesus saw people and we need to look for people in our lives who see us and we see them.

Speaker 1: 26:09

Next question is this, and I'm not going to spend long here, just going to make reference to this Are they emotionally intelligent? Are they emotionally intelligent? I'm not asking if they're intellectually intelligent. That's a fine quality to have, but by and large, the most important quality type of intelligence somebody has to have is not just a high IQ but a high EQ. Are they emotionally intelligent? Do they know how to navigate relationships with grace? Do they know how to navigate relationships without extreme awkwardness? Do they know how to navigate relationships where they engage in healthy dialogue? Are they emotionally intelligent? That's a whole other series. We'll leave that off to the side. Third question and Stephen's alluded to this before in the previous weeks are they suitable for the task? Are they suitable for the task?

Speaker 1: 27:01

My neighbors, knowing the stories of my car woes, know that I'm suitable for some tasks and not suitable for other tasks and we have a great relationship. We have a unique neighborhood where especially the men all just hang out in each other's garages every day. Almost we become good friends. Now, my friends, my neighbors, know that if they have a life issue, I'm kind of the guy they go to. I'm the guy who will listen and maybe ask some probing questions that help them. But one thing they know is there's certain things I can't do.

Speaker 1: 27:37

When I was dealing with that car that I thought was the best thing in the world and wasn't and I was trying to jumpstart it in my driveway and the battery wouldn't jumpstart. I did it right the first time, but I thought, okay, maybe I did this wrong and so I just decided, for some unknown reason, to just mix the way the I don't even know what they're called the jumper cables were attached to the battery, thinking that maybe that would do it. And some of you may guess what happened next. I turned on my other car and got the battery going and, instead of charging the battery on the van, it started a fire on the jumper cables and my neighbor saw what was going on. He said what are you doing? You're going to blow up the entire neighborhood. And he came over and got the fire out and he said Jason, okay, here's the deal. If you ever need help with your car, don't touch it. I will be over. I will be over and I will fix it. And if you ever see somebody's car in this neighborhood needing help. Don't touch it. You are not suitable for this task.

Speaker 1: 28:54

You see, just because somebody is trustworthy in a lot of areas doesn't mean they're the right person for the task you need, for the relationship you're desiring. And so you need to ask what are the needs for this relationship? Does this person have the abilities to meet those needs? Just because somebody is marriage material doesn't mean he or she is marriage material for you. I've seen so many marriages ruined this way, where people fall in love, especially opposites, because the opposites the old saying goes attract and they attack. And they come and they think, oh, this person's perfect. And later on they realize that my personality needs a different type of personality to be in good relationship. And later down the road they're in a heap of trouble.

Speaker 1: 29:50

Paul writes this so Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and the teachers to equip his people for works of service until we all reach unity in the faith and acknowledge the Son of God and become mature. And there's a lot there. And Paul's talking about the church as a whole. But I think there's a lot there. And Paul's talking about the church as a whole. But I think there's a lot there that we can learn about trusting in relationships, that sometimes you're going to need a prophetic type in your life, somebody who calls you into action, who says you know what? I see this gifting in you and I want you to move into that space. You've been kind of sitting on the sidelines. You need to get in the game. Sometimes you need a prophet, sometimes you need a teacher, somebody who is going to help you learn certain things in life. Maybe this is in business, maybe this is in another area of your life. You need a teacher or a coach, and sometimes you need a pastor Not a pastor by vocation, but somebody who has pastoral skills, in other words, somebody who is compassionate and gentle, somebody who's going to walk with you through a crisis in life. All those are important, but each task requires a different set of skills. We need to know is this person suitable for the task, for the type of relationship I'm desiring?

Speaker 1: 31:13

Fourth thing we need to ask is is their behavior consistent? Is their behavior consistent? I remember talking to a therapist of mine and he said I just want to build up trust. I want people to trust me, and he said this. He said Jason, trust is consistent behavior in the same direction. It's consistent behavior in the same direction and he drew this chart for me. He said this is what it looks like you have time up here and you have behavior down here. Time up here and you have behavior down here and you have what you want. You want trust up here, but trust, as you know, has to be earned. It's something that's earned over time and so when you're looking for somebody that you're trying to decide, how do I know if they can hit up here?

Speaker 1: 32:06

What you have to do is watch, as Stephen may have mentioned earlier their track record. Are they consistently near this line? Are they exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? Are they showing you instances again and again? That kind of hover around here? Because the more they show you of this, the more you realize okay, I can trust this person. I can trust this person. Now he said you have to remember, we're all human. We're going to mess up sometimes. So occasionally you'll have an outlier over here or an outlier over here. They have been very reliable, but one time they just didn't look at the calendar, they didn't show up. But you still trust them because this pattern is already going on.

Speaker 1: 32:56

I said, the more you trust them, the more you see this consistent behavior, the more you can lean into the relationship, because they are showing consistent behavior in the right direction and they can reach this point of complete trust. And one thing I will note yes, trust is earned, but trust also has to be given, because while you do want to earn this trust, while the person needs to show that they're consistent, you can't expect them to be here at the beginning. At this point. You give them trust to show you the consistency, and some of you are in relationships with people where they're all over the board out here most of the time, people where they're all over the board out here most of the time, and then they do one little thing right here and you say, oh, I can trust them. You cannot trust them. This is their norm, not this. So consistent behavior in the right direction.

Speaker 1: 34:03

Next thing you need to ask is this how do they handle conflict? How do they handle conflict? See, trust-based relationships will always have disappointments. There will always be needs for confrontation on issues because, again, we're human, we're fallen, we're going to mess up. You and I will mess up and betray people in relationships, but that does not mean that that breaks the entire trust. What it means is that there has to be a moment of confrontation, and Proverbs talks about three types of people in this world.

Speaker 1: 34:37

He talks about the wise person, the fool, often referred to as the mocker, and the evil person. And when it comes to confrontation, each person is going to have a different response. The wise person when they are confronted, right here, their response you know, you say hey, when you say those things, when you behave that way, it really just breaks my trust with you. Their response now they may be a little defensive at first, because we all don't like to be confronted, but eventually they are going to lean in and they are going to ask how can I change? What will make you feel better about this relationship? How can I better be there for you? And if they lean in, your response is you're going to trust them. You're going to trust them, but the fool is something different. Now, I wouldn't go home and label your spouses or your friends this, but the fool is something different. Now I wouldn't go home and label your spouses or your friends this, but the fool is different.

Speaker 1: 35:49

The fool when confronted, they react, they get defensive, they say no, that's not true. Look, I'm a good person, you're just overreacting. This is really about you. They gaslight you, they do whatever. They just say this isn't about me, I'm really not that bad. In which case your response has to be to put up a boundary, to draw a line in the sand, to say if you don't stop drinking, I can't be around you. To say if you keep getting angry about that, if you keep blowing up at me, this is not safe To say to your boss. My emotional health means far more than this job. If you keep abusing me, I'm out. If you keep abusing me, I'm out. And so they can respond in one of two ways. They can change, and if they change, you trust them. But if they don't change, you back away because there's no trust available. So that's the fool.

Speaker 1: 37:01

Now, there are and there's not a lot of these, but there are definitely people in this world who the Bible says are evil. Their hearts, the Bible says, are bent on destruction. Now, when you confront an evil person, their response isn't to lean in, their response isn't even to react. Their response isn't even to react. Their response is to attack. They come at you and they try to destroy you in whatever way that makes sense to them. And your response, the only response you can have is protect. Protect yourselves and the people that this person is attacking. If he's hitting you, get out. If he's abusing you, if she's abusing you, run far away. It doesn't mean you don't care about the person. You can pray for them, but you cannot under any circumstances trust them. You have to protect yourself. Ask Stephen for help, ask the elders of this church for help. They're here for that. I know Lindsay is an emotional health coach for us here. Ask her. Ask whoever it is that's safe. How do I protect myself here? Because that person cannot under any circumstances be trusted.

Speaker 1: 38:36

The final and, I think, ultimate question we need to ask when discerning whether somebody should be trusted. It's a little bit unique of a question, but it's this would I chain my soul to theirs? Would I chain my soul to theirs? David and Jonathan. In the Old Testament, king David and Jonathan, who was the son of King Saul, had this very tight friendship, a trusted relationship. In fact, it was so trusted that David's life was in danger from Jonathan's dad. And David just said can I trust you to tell me if he's coming after me. And Jonathan in secret told David you got to run. My dad's coming after you.

Speaker 1: 39:19

But listen to what 1 Samuel says about their relationship. As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was chained to the soul of David. That word, sometimes it's translated knit. It can also be translated chained. It was chained to the soul of David and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

Speaker 1: 39:40

And so the question I always ask about the people I'm deciding it can I be in a a trusted relationship with, is how would I feel if my soul was chained to theirs? Would I feel like I'm just dragging them along and it's just this huge weight, or would I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders? And now my life is in deep community, deep relationship, deep intimacy with somebody who sees me, with somebody who has the ability to help me in this area, with somebody who, if things go sideways for us, we can talk it through. We're going to both lean in my prayer for all of you, especially those who have been broken in different ways, who don't feel like you can trust again, get back in the game. You were not meant to be alone. You can trust again.