Life's Most Important Relationship Principle

You know, you ever go on, say, Facebook, or you're reading a Twitter feed, or even just looking at the news headlines or listening to the radio, and it occurs to you, man, we live in a very distracted society right now, right? It is so easy for all of us to lose our focus on what is essential in life. This is such a big problem that next weekend we are starting a brand new series that I call focused, staying centered on what is central in life, in faith. This is a verse-by-verse study in the book of Colossians in the Bible. I have been looking forward to this series literally for about a year, planning on it, preparing for it. So I hope you can join us. That's starting next weekend.

Now this weekend, since it is Mother's Day and all of us are thinking a lot about family and relationships, we want to talk about life's most important relationship principle. And you can follow along with the notes that are there in your bulletins today. And in fact, what I want to do as you grab those message notes is to show you a video that we made this last week. We interviewed several mothers here at Twin Lakes Church and asked them about what it's like being a mom. And here's what some of them said.

Motherhood is the most humbling experience. My favorite thing about motherhood is watching Sophia discover new things. I love the intimacy. I love the snuggles and just watching just something really special in that. My favorite thing about being a mom is teaching my boys how to love others. It's been an incredible blessing. One of my favorite things about being a mom at this stage is that I get to be a grandma. It's such a joy to see the kind of people that my children have grown into. I love being able to see their growth, not just physically, but the discovery, the curiosity that they have just for life.

To describe myself as a mom, I would say that I am intentional. Time just goes so fast and so I just want to savor all the moments that I can. I'm just goofy. I'm a goofy mom. Focused. I'm focused on my boys and their needs. I am fiercely loving. I want them to learn how to fiercely love and protect those that they love and stand up for those that they love and stand up for what they believe in. I think the word that describes me is supportive. I'm in a really great stage in life as a mom, but I definitely have not been a perfect mom. So many things that I look back and I can tend to really beat myself up over.

I demand excellence of myself and I can demand it of my kids and our kids have a tendency to hold on to mistakes that they make for a long time. I do that and I did not want to pass that on to them. I make mistakes. I'm not perfect. Follow through with what you say. Having a 14 year old now, he has said to me, "When you say something, you got to stick with it." Being afraid that I wasn't going to be good enough. Something that God has always been teaching me through motherhood is to have more patience. More patience in every situation. I don't think I could ever have enough.

Comparing and not being content with what God has given me to parent my girls, but looking to other people or other things or what they're doing and comparing myself in a negative way, I think that's something that I struggle with. One of the things that I absolutely know about her is that she's always there when I need her. I just know that she is always going to love me carefully. No matter what we do, she always has this great forgiving attitude. Her love and kindness and love is just so contagious. Every time you're around her, it's just such a joy.

After having kids, you know, this society, there's so much pressure to be a perfect mom and I think my mom showed me it's okay not to be perfect and when you're not, ask for forgiveness and that's okay. She's like, "You need old me. Let's stay warm and melt." I want to be feeling like my mom. It is a wonderful teacher at a great school. It takes care of her family very well. We get to take care of each other because I am not that far away from her age. She has this kind of overwhelming kindness and loving attitude. If you walk into a room with her, you will leave just feeling happy and joyful and it's one of those awesome things that she has the power of doing.

I see Jesus through my mom, in her willingness to always be there for us. She's always got my back. She's always there for me. My mom is really a big brother. I'm so funny and kind, loving. And my mom likes coffee. It's true. I just also really admire my mom's very strong in her faith and her convictions without any apology. She is who she is and she's confident in herself. I would say that she is the best mom probably in the world. I wish I could be more like you. I would say I love you. You mean so much to me. You're always there for me, for us, everyone in our family. Yeah, we love you. I love you mom. We love you mom. I love you mom.

Oh, that's so sweet. Oh my goodness. I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful for them and motherhood has been incredible. One more time. Let's give it up for all the moms that are here today. We love you moms. Thank you for having the most important, the hardest job on earth.

Well, you know, I love how one of Molly Craig's sons said this. When you walk into a room with her in it, you leave feeling joyful. That is one of the awesome things she has the power to do. Well, what I want to talk about for just a few minutes for the rest of our time together is how you can have that same power. Life's most important relationship principle. I heard this first in a sermon series on relationships by Andy Stanley way back in 2009 and it has just stuck in my head and changed every relationship really in my life because he talks about a daily choice.

Everyone in every relationship makes this choice every single day. And if you learn to choose the right alternative in this choice, it is going to drastically improve every relationship you have with your mom and if you're a mom with your kids, but not just that also your relationship with your spouse, your friends, your coworkers. And before I reveal what that choice is, I want to start by looking at the most famous relationship chapter in the entire Bible, First Corinthians 13. Now you're probably familiar with this. You probably have heard this read at weddings and you maybe even have memorized this.

Now most of First Corinthians 13 makes sense. It's easy to understand. You read it and go good advice, but there is one phrase in this chapter that you look at and go, I actually don't know if that is good advice. I think I've actually told people to do the opposite of what this verse says. And yet really it's the most important yet most neglected relationship principle in the entire Bible. And on the surface, it seems like very bad advice. Let me show you what I mean.

Look at this passage. It says, "Love is patient. Love is kind." And what I'm saying is you read this and you're like, "Yep, I get that. Of course it does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, obviously. It does not dishonor other people. It is not self-seeking. It's not easily angered." You're like, "Of course it keeps no record of wrongs." Okay, that's a little bit harder, but I get it. "Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth." I get that too. Don't be afraid of the truth. And that's hard too, but I get it.

My point is pretty much all of this stuff in First Corinthians 13, you read and go, "Right. This makes sense." He gets to verse 7. And you just kind of put on the brakes a little bit because here's what he does. He uses one little Greek word four times. He's talking about really just one principle. There's going to be a one-point sermon and he gives four different illustrations of this. And if you pull any one of these out of context, it doesn't make any sense. He says, "It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." You might be more familiar with this in the King James Version. Love bears all... In fact, let's read that King James Version together. Let me hear you. "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

Now, for years, when I read this phrase, "believes all things," or in the NIV, "always trusts," I would say, "I don't know if that phrase has really inspired Scripture because if I always trust, that makes me an idiot." Or at least unhealthy, right? Isn't that what codependent people do? Haven't you ever told a friend, "You need to wake up to reality and stop trusting them?" So, what could he be talking about here? What does he mean?

Well, here's how I want to explain this. This is so important. In every relationship, there is a gap, watch this, between expectation and reality, right? You said you'd be here at four. It's not 4:30 and you're still not here. A gap between expectation and reality, somebody's behavior. Or you said you'd do these chores. You told me this morning you would do these chores and now my teenage son, my teenage daughter, they're still not done. Gap between expectation and reality. You said you'd never do that again and yet here we are, you did it. It can be deep, it can be shallow, but at some point in every relationship, there is a gap between expectation and behavior.

Now, here is the choice you make every single time. In that gap, you put either choice number one, you believe the best, or choice number two, you assume the worst every single time. This thing that we place in the gap, it's one thing or the other. For example, she is late. Again, you can believe the best while she's been really busy, she's been doing so much. I know she doesn't want to be late again. I'm sure there's a reason that she's not here. I've just got to find out what that is or you can assume the worst. She never watches the clock, probably on the phone again. She just does not care about others and their feelings. The point is, in every relationship, over and over again, we put something in that gap.

Now, this part isn't in your notes, but you can jot this down or just look at the screen. There are three things that help determine what you put in the gap. What you see, in other words, he seems moody or she didn't do her chores and who you are as a person. This is the hard part. We tend not to factor this in at all, but we all come into every relationship with some baggage. What your mom was like, what your dad was like, what your former bosses were like, how past relationships might have hurt you. We all come into relationships with stuff, with baggage, with traditions.

It does not take long for something in your marriage, with your kids, with your friendships to trigger the stuff that you bring into relationships, your joys, your pains, your own failures, your wounds from somebody else's failure. What you saw happen in previous relationships in your life, those all are just a bundle of fears and expectations that help determine what you put into the gap. Just one example, I've shared this with you before from my own life, probably because of losing my father suddenly. He died when I was almost four years old and as a child at four, my father dying, that's the worst thing I could possibly imagine. My life jumped off the rails, so I just expect it's going to keep jumping off the rails and I can tend to have major abandonment issues.

For example, if Laurie's 30 minutes late from doing some kind of a chore or an errand, immediately I jump to not believe the best, maybe she ran into somebody at the store and she's having a beautiful spiritual conversation with that person and that's why she's late. What I jump to is I assume the worst, she's probably dead. Seriously, that's where I go. Or when she walks in the door, I'm infuriated with her because I say, don't you know how this scares me? Don't you realize how I'm afraid that I'm going to lose you? Why don't you call when you're going to be late? And we get into some big thing because I am assuming the worst, right? We all have this kind of baggage, but you are not a slave to your baggage because there's a third factor and that's what you choose.

You may have been hurt in a relationship. You still have a choice in every single relationship. So here's my question. What do you tend to choose? Where do you tend to go? Do you tend to believe the best or assume the worst? As soon as you get the text, honey, I have to work late. Oh, really? As soon as you get the text, mom, I know I said I'd be home for dinner, but, or as soon as you get the text heading home, I know I said I'd have dinner ready, but me and the kids are at this thing and we couldn't get out of it so that there's frozen meals in the freezer. As soon as you get the text, whatever it is, where do you tend to go in your mind when there's a gap between your expectation and reality?

Now here's why this is so important. We tend to imagine that happy families, happy parents and children, happy marriages, happy friendship relationships, what happens is there is no gap. Right? Expectation always meets behavior. Reality always meets expectations. The truth though is you will not find a single relationship where there is no gap. What you'll find is families who fill the gap this way. They have learned, they've made it a habit to believe the best when they don't know why something's happening. That goes for couples, it goes for your relationship with your kids, it goes for your relationship with your employees, with your coworkers, you get generous with your imagined explanation of why there is a gap.

Now a couple of disclaimers, of course I'm not saying that you put your head in the sand like an ostrich if you need to have an honest conversation about something that has to change in your relationship. Of course you have to have those honest conversations, but you know what, even after those conversations there's still going to be a gap. So what are you going to put in that expectation behavior gap? And of course I'm not saying that this is how you paper over an actually abusive relationship. Abusive relationships have to be dealt with immediately, that's a whole other topic. What I'm talking about is in your typical day to day relationship there is going to be a gap and you need to be generous with your explanation of the gap if you want that relationship to thrive.

Let me give you some research on this. There's a book called The One Thing You Need to Know by a guy named Marcus Buckingham. And this is a book, it's a business book and it's all about how in every field of human endeavor his theory is there is one central concept. And if you know that concept you will be successful in that field of endeavor. And if you don't grasp that concept you will fail in that field of endeavor. Now in every career and every endeavor the concepts are different, but to illustrate this he starts off his whole book by talking about family relationships, by talking about marriages.

And he says there is one central concept to having a happy family. And if you know this concept you will have a happy family. And if you don't know this concept you will not. You say that's quite a claim. Well here's how he talks about it. He says there was a group of researchers who found people who were considered very happy in their marriages and they'd been together 10 years or more. And they decided to study them to see if there was a single common denominator. And they assumed they knew what it was based on their previous research.

Because in previous research they found that in unhappy relationships there was a common denominator. In unhappy relationships, the spouses or the kids to parents, everybody said the other person just doesn't understand me. Because they felt misunderstood there was a distance that put a strain on relationships. So they assumed that when they studied happy families what they would find would be they knew each other so well that there would be very few unmet expectations because they know each other so well. They could meet expectations almost perfectly. In other words this is what researchers expected to find no gap.

What they found was the exact opposite. They would give the husband for example a test and they would ask him rate yourself on certain character qualities. How are you when it comes to being generous, to being brave, to being loyal? He would rate himself. Then they would give the wife for example that same test about her husband. How would you rate your husband? On the same traits, being generous, brave, loyal and so on. What they found was in these happy marriages and happy families the spouse would rate their opposite higher on every single character quality than the spouse rated themselves.

Do you get what I'm saying here? In other words in every happy marriage the partner saw their partner as much scoring much higher on these character traits than the person saw themselves and their conclusion from the test was that love is indeed a bit blind. Here are just a few lines from their findings. A spouse's positive illusion creates an upward spiral of love. Before you think this is weird this is exactly what you did when you were first dating. You have this positive imagination of your spouse. The illusion created a conviction. They are really this way. The conviction created a sense of security. I can trust them. And security fostered intimacy and intimacy fostered love.

A spouse who assumes his or her spouse possesses strengths that he or she does not think he or she possesses will have a strong marriage. Now they're talking about marriage here but the same principle applies to any relationship. Here's what they say. Find the most generous explanation. Come up with it. Be creative until you discover it. For each other's behavior and then believe it. They're saying in every relationship there is a gap. And every time you come upon this gap you have a choice about what you put in this gap. And their research says happy relationships come up with the most generous explanation for the gap.

So where do you tend to go with this? In your relationships. Do you tend to believe the best or assume the worst? Now by the way why would anybody ever want to assume the worst of other relationships? But that happens so often doesn't it? Why do people end up there? You know what's appealing about assuming the worst in every relationship? You almost always get to be right. And you almost look forward to it when your spouse or your son or your daughter or somebody that you work with blows it again because you get to say didn't I tell you they'd be late? Didn't I tell you you couldn't rely on their promises? I told you they'd take way longer on that project than they said. I insisted that they have a longer timeline but I knew better. You get to be right.

And what happens is you get into this cycle where you start looking for their failures and you start publicly celebrating their failures because it confirmed your suspicions and you love to discover they're wrong. And you think you're winning like argument points but actually you're losing one of the most important relationships in your life. Because you know what let me tell you something about the person you work with, about your son or your daughter or about your spouse or about your parents. Here's the truth about them generally speaking they don't want to disappoint you. They don't want to disappoint you on purpose.

But when you go negative what it communicates to them is no matter how hard you try you will never meet my standard. And what happens is they will start to stay away from you and the gap actually increases because now they're afraid of you. And they dread the conversation and they dread the text and they dread the phone call and now if they're running late they put off even making the call because they don't want to be made to feel like an idiot again. And you know what's really tragic eventually they won't even need you to assume the worst for you. They will start doing it for themselves.

But if what you do with that gap is believe the best you're communicating it's okay man it's no big deal everybody has rough days. What it does is it communicates margin in a relationship and a healthy person is going to respond to that margin and actually start moving in your direction and the gap is actually lessened because you're creating a safety net and you're communicating I trust you I accept you unconditionally and the person responds by moving in the direction of your grace right when you walk into a room with her in it you leave feeling joyful she has that power yet this is how she has that power.

And the thing is this is exactly what God does for us. Do you understand that I've just explained to you the gospel because there's a word for responding to people this way grace this is all through scripture but just one example the book of Romans in the Bible the first three chapters of Romans are very intense they build a very compelling case for the fact that we are all sinners and we all deserve God's wrath because of the gap between God's holiness and our sinful natures and our behavior but then it says God shows his tolerance and his patience by not only withholding the wrath that we deserve but also giving us grace we don't deserve.

And I love this verse Romans 2:4 for the kindness of God leads you to repentance we are drawn to God because of his grace there was a giant gap and God filled it with his grace toward us and it was costly he sent his son to stand in the gap for us and now God sees us covered with the righteousness of Jesus Christ it's so powerful that if you let this capture your imagination if you let this replace the image of God you have of God being a perfectionist to God who demands that you be perfect before you can even enter his presence and instead realize that God is the God who comes down into the gap to us.

When this captures your imagination what happens is you start to overflow to other people with the grace that you realize that you have received and that's what makes what we're talking about today even more important than you think it is what we're talking about is even more important than you having a great relationship with your kids because we're talking about the best testimony of the gospel and you those of you who are Christians can ever give is when your relationships are grace based and not performance based.

Listen there Christians are like how can we reach Santa Cruz County with the message of God's grace there is no greater evangelism strategy for Santa Cruz County about the reality of Jesus Christ then when you respond to the gap with grace because it's so different people will ask you how can you act that way and we can respond it's not because of me it's because of the way I believe I am loved by God.

Now with all this in mind listen to 1 Corinthians 13:7 again and see if it doesn't make more sense to you now. Excuse me, it love always protects what does it protect it protects the integrity of the relationship it says I'm not going to get some negative assumption in the way of this relationship I'm looking for things to put in the positive column it always trusts it always looks for a generous explanation it always hopes in hope I'm going to believe the best and it always perseveres it never gives up.

Let me give you a real life example of what this looks like as you heard Adrian say today we're handing out baby bottles to help support the pregnancy resource center here in Santa Cruz and as he said you can fill them up and then bring them back by Father's Day and we hope to just present the PRC with a great check of support from Twin Lakes Church. I think this is the perfect partnership on Mother's Day because the PRC does this for the young women who walk into the pregnancy resource center because many many times the souls who come into the PRC are young women from homes where their families assumed the worst of them all the time and now they're assuming the worst for themselves and they don't even think they're worthy of love anymore.

And what happens is at the PRC for maybe the first time in their lives these women are meeting Christians who believe the best for them and help them in practical ways and I want you to listen to just a couple of testimonies about this.

I felt broken inside me like that I was worthless and that I couldn't be a mother. I was homeless pretty much my whole entire pregnancy until about seven and a half months. First I thought how can I deserve somebody being so nice to me? Like how can somebody help me? They're not my family they're nobody, they help me. Hi welcome to my home. This is my bathroom and it's a two bedroom and this is my daughter's room. You want to play?

I did not have support from my family I had no support at all I barely even had a place to live I was staying on couches. The pregnancy resource center wrote me a referral and the few months later I was actually placed here which was amazing just to have kind of this almost like a family there supporting me in my decision to bring a life into this world. Well I went to counseling every week with them for an hour and they kind of helped me sort my feelings like that I wasn't the first woman in the world to have a baby without a husband there or anybody helping me and then also like economically that they could help me with essentials like diapers and baby wipes and all that stuff.

Whether the needs are material, financial, medical or relational the pregnancy resource center is there to help we offer all of our services free of charge. It was like they cared about me they cared about my child you know I didn't really know any of them or I had just met them I felt so welcomed and so supported. I can count on them for free love they gave it to me with no expectations nothing they didn't ask anything from me they just willingly open their hearts and they can know that I could tell anybody that was in my situation or is pregnant and alone they could go there and find love.

You can tell listening to those young women it's not just about the practical assistance it's about people who look them in the eyes and said I know you're in a tough situation and there's a gap but we believe the best for you and we believe the best for your baby and we believe the best for your future and like you heard those two young women say they have not been hearing that from anywhere else and so when you respond to people with that kind of powerful grace it literally changes their lives.

Now some of you are going wow I wish I had a chance to do that for somebody you know what here's the thing you will have a chance to practice what I am telling you almost instantly it will begin as soon as you leave here and you find out that your husband and your kids did not make Mother's Day reservations for you anywhere or tomorrow afternoon when the chores didn't get done again and then Tuesday morning when the garbage didn't get put out this week again and later this week when he or she comes home late again.

And at that moment the most important relationship choice you can make begins right here and the grace you show is so different that it blows people away when they see it and they get drawn to the ultimate source of grace Jesus Christ so it's my prayer that as we go all of us moms and dads and kids and friends and co-workers and neighbors that all of us choose grace in every relationship every day because grace is the most important relationship principle ever.

Let's pray together would you bow your heads with me as our heads are bowed I just want to invite you to pray and I want to address a couple of different groups here the first group might be people who maybe you sensed a gap between you and God and perhaps pictured the Lord as a demanding perfectionist at God who always assumes the worst of us and now you're getting a glimmer that he's the good shepherd who comes to seek lost chief that he comes into the gap and I want to urge you to say Lord I want to respond to this grace I want to receive your free offer of the water of life love and salvation in my life because I know that it's your kindness that will lead me to repentance to a changed heart to a changed life.

So if you've never if you're not sure if you've ever settled that issue just breathe a prayer to God right now in your heart and say Lord I receive your grace bought for me at great cost on the cross into my life now and with our heads still bound there's a second group I want to address for those of us who are in relationships breathe a prayer like this God thank you for your grace and mercy we don't take credit when our relationships work and there's sometimes that they don't seem like they're working God I pray that you will give me hope today and wisdom today to know what to do with Holy Spirit power to do this but especially God help me in all of my relationships to be a reflection of your grace and lavish grace on one another so that people can be drawn to Jesus Christ and his extravagant love for us and we pray this in his holy name Amen.