Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / Healthy Relationships : Vulnerability | Sunday Service | November 17, 2024

Transcript

Healthy Relationships : Vulnerability | Sunday Service | November 17, 2024 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: All right, well, I'm grateful you were here this morning.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know me, I'm Brian's pastor, and uh I'm just grateful to be here.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna continue a sermon series that I started last week called Healthy Relationships.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Turn to the person next to you, tell them I want to have a healthy relationship.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Turn to the other person next to you, say, I am your friend.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And here, if you're sitting next to somebody you've never known before and never met before, you just made a friend.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: How incredible is that we're going, we're gonna talk this morning about being vulnerable with each other.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about vulnerability.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk about that this morning.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want you to do.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want you to dig a little deep into your soul this morning, okay?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we're gonna use the story of David and Jonathan to guide us a little bit here.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But before we do that, let's pray over the preaching of God's word.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Gracious God, we welcome you into this space.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: God, we know that you are our Savior, you are our comforter, you are our redeemer.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: God, you have given us all things that we need.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: God, this morning, help us to break down our walls just a little bit.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: To step over them, to think about relationships in our life where there exist barriers and walls.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Help us take a step this morning, God, to break those down.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God, your word is a lamp into our feet and a light to our path.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: May it speak to us and may it speak through us for the establishment of your kingdom on this earth.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: May the words of my mouth this morning and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight and in your sight alone, oh God.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: You are our rock and you are our redeemer, and we love you.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your name.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know those families in the world that just seem to like have it all together?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like every member of that family is just super talented, and they kind of it makes you a little jealous, right?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking, I'm not talking about like um nepotism.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about like people who get elevated to places that they don't uh belong or they don't deserve.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about like people that are just actually really good at what they do and then generations beyond them, you know, like it always seems to pass down that way.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think about those families all the time, and I think I think it's fascinating.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh can I tell you about one of my favorite ones?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in 2005, I discovered this show called Lost.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Have you seen Lost?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I discovered this show called Lost.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this was um this was on TV live, but I was about a year late to it.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So my friend and I in college, we bought some of the episodes on iTunes and we took them on an iPod.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard of that?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we literally plugged it into one of those um CRT uh televisions, uh, because that's the one my parents gave me to go to college with, little black thing, and it uh it was it was four by three, it wasn't widescreen.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we plugged the iPod into it with this little cable I bought on eBay.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was so proud of myself, and we started watching Lost.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've not seen Lost, it is to at least for my generation, it was the one that started the cliffhanger.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like now, cliffhangers existed obviously in TV before that, but for me, it was the one that did it the best.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like in the end of the episode, and then you get you get to the end of the episode and something happens, you're like, right?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I was getting to watch it kind of nowadays, this seems normal to you, but back then it wasn't.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was getting to watch it one after one after one after one after one, right?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh used to be that you'd have to watch it, there'd be a giant cliffhanger, and you'd have to wait till next week, right?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like thinking about it and you talk about it at work or school the next day or whatever.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I discovered this show, it was amazing.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was the first time I ever like started researching a show to figure out like who wrote it, who put it together, those sorts of things.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out it was created by these two guys, Damon Lindelof and J.J.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Abrams.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is them winning an Oscar for something else because they got snubbed on a lot of things for lost.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But this is Damon Lindelof and this is JJ Abrams.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, J.J.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Abrams went on to direct a lot of things that you probably have seen, especially if you're a nerd.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Star Trek, and then all of the star, the new Star Wars stuff, he had a big hand in, including Force Awakens and that sort of thing.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so he has he's become like this just kind of big deal, particularly in that genre, as being a director.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: But at the time that this was all happening, 2006, 2007, he was also raising a family.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those daughters is this girl.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's good, that was good.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Say that again.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: One, two, three.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know who this is?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody know?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Gracie Abrams.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know who Gracie Abrams is, this is her.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You probably have seen this because this is the top of the Spotify charts.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is her album, and um, she's how old is she now?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: 19, 20, 25?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, whatever.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: She's a lot younger than I am.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: She's like 25, whatever.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and her music is really good.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's the type of music that we like.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Allison and I first saw her back in April of 2023 when we went to the Eras tour, and she opened.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is before this album came out, and she opened, and I was like, man, who is that girl?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And come to find out, she's JJ Abrams' daughter.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, man, that's not fair.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: What you get two celebrities in the family, right?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: You get two people who are really good at two different things.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what in the world?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the way it was.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I started learning more about her, particularly as this album has blown up.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you aren't aware, it's blown up.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just get out from under your rock, you'll find out.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Just go to literally just go to Spotify, click the top thing.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is not being gate kept, you know.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but this is Gracie Abrams' album.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I've learned a lot about her.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: She has a really good friend named Audrey Hobert.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: They met in middle school, and this is them, and they are, yeah.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the odds are done.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is Audrey Hobert.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: They met in middle school on the bus to this art school because they grew up with a little bit of wealth.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And um, they have become really good friends and close, like close singer-songwriters.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they write together all the time.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in fact, I want to show you a video clip real quick of kind of the kind of relationship they have.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go ahead, Garden.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Haven't even met him.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: Watch this be the wrong thing.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Classic.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: When we wrote, God I'm actually invested, could be translated to what?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: How am I here right now?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Watch this be the wrong thing, classic isn't just knowing yourself, I think.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: I know what's gonna happen.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: I know what's gonna happen.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I might feel this way, but like, haha, it's fine.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I'm I'm I see it and I know it's crazy, and I know myself, and you know, it's both true and also a tool to get hurt less.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of relationship they have.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, hold up again.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go there quite yet.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's the kind of relationship they have, but they write together as well.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that Gracie has been doing is bringing her out on stage to sing with her.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've never seen Audrey on TikTok, if you've never seen Audrey sing with her on stage, I wanted you to just get, and I had to clip this one because of we're in church, but uh, I wanted, I wanted you to get a clip and a feeling of what their friendship and relationship is like.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here you go, Garen.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not that old.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it it is crazy to me because the first time I ever saw that, you Audrey has a little bit, can we say personality?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: She has a little bit of personality when she sings, and she I didn't know who she was when I first saw that clip come up, and and there are several clips like it.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and so I I was like, well, who's I'm thinking it's like a fan that she pulled up on the stage, and I'm like, okay, that fan is getting it, you know, like going after it.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and the more and more I started to read, I I found out about this tight-knit relationship that they have.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is fascinating to me because I grew up as an Elton John fan.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: That was a lot more response than I expected out of Gen Z.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Elton John was famous for writing the music to the lyricist.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Did anybody know?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Phil goes, oh yeah, nobody knows this.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is what?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Bernie! Bernie Toppin! Yes, Ryland, thank you.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Bernie Topplin is his was his lyricist, and they actually didn't meet for a very long time.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: They had this kind of mail relationship where they would mail things lyrics in the mail.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: The mail is a thing you used to put a letter in, and then you would put a stamp on, and then it would show up in the mail later.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can't trust it these days, but you used to be able to trust it to bring you the things.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: But Bernie would write the lyrics, send it to Elton, and then he would write these like massive hits, massive hits.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was very curious about this singer-songwriter relationship that these two have, particularly because of their personalities and and their songs.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Can we just say they're very honest?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're very honest.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're maybe at times a little ambiguous, but they're very honest.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And some of their bridges, I mean, their bridges hit hard.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Also, like, how many how many syllables can you put in a single bridge, right?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: But like they they're able to do it.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I've just been fascinated by it.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then I started reading about their uh writing process.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I have two quotes that I want to share with you because both of them are from each each other, uh, and they basically say very similar things.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: This first one's from Gracie Abrams.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: She says that one of the gifts that I got from the process of making this album was having a partner in laughing through a lot of the heavier, more confusing or embarrassing feelings.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I bolded those on purpose.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Having a partner in laughing through a lot of the heavier, more confusing or embarrassing feelings.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go to the next one, Garen.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Together we created this space where the most dramatic, this is Audrey, and embarrassing feelings were okay to express as loudly as we wanted to.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear that again.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Together we created this space where the most dramatic and embarrassing feelings were okay to express as loudly as we wanted to.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was reading some of these interviews and articles, I realized something that this type of vulnerability is so rare in today's world.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: This type of vulnerability is so rare.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's a slide that says that, Gary.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: This type of vulnerability is so rare.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we all have walls that we put up, we all have these kind of uh embarrassing things that happen to us that we don't know what the rest of the world to know about.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: We all have these uh uh realities or truths about us that we just don't want anybody else to know about.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we hide those behind walls.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes something traumatic happens to us and we build that wall a little higher.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes something bad happens to us and we build the wall, or sometimes we tr we entrust that information with somebody and then they break that trust, and so we build that wall a little higher.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we do in our world, particularly in today's world, is that we build these walls higher.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: You probably have people you would call your inner circle, your closest friends right now who don't know something about you.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: There is something that they don't know about you in this space.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Can I say this for a second?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Particularly men.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think girls sometimes do a better job at sharing their inner thoughts and feelings.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: But bros, we just don't.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: We build walls.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: As I've been thinking about talking about vulnerability, I was seeking out some biblical wisdom on this.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um this is hard because uh we live in a society now that that lives very differently than than the biblical story does.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't any explicit like just declarations of Paul, right?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like there aren't any of these sort of things.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think what may be helpful for us to do is actually look at the story uh of David and Jonathan, which we're gonna get to in a second, and come up with these uh kind of three points that I think might be helpful for us this morning.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: The first point is very obvious.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Vulnerability is scary.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the walls exist.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: The second one I think is is the the why of it.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we want to be vulnerable with each other?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it builds trust.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you were here last week, you you heard me talk about the fact that trust is the building block of relationships.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Trust is where the foundation has to be.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So vulnerability builds that.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh the other thing is that vulnerability weakens pride, something we never want to let go of, but it strengthens bonds.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the kind of pieces where I want to go this morning.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we're gonna read um from 1 Samuel, and we're gonna start in 19.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Saul ordered his son Jonathan and all his servants to kill David.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's a good start.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you aren't familiar with the characters in this story, let me fill you in.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: There exists a king Saul.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Say Saul.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Saul, not to be uh confused with Paul, and not to be confused with who Paul was prior to being known as Paul.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is King Saul, and his son is who?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Context clues.
• 15:50
  unknown: Jonathan.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pretty good.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Saul is the king, and his son is Jonathan.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, kings generally take their uh, or when they die, who becomes king next?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Their son.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Jonathan, at least in some form or fashion, is in line to be king, and uh they have servants, we know that.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's another character in this story, and then they're going to kill who?
• 16:13
  unknown: David.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: All right, now who's David?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, so David's this little boy.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: He, well, I mean, he's probably older than a boy, but they call him a boy many places in the scripture.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's a boy, and uh his brothers are in the Israelite army wanting to fight the Philistines, and there happens to be a very large Philistine named Goliath.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Goliath, we don't know how tall he was.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think Shaquille O'Neal.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like he's a big guy, they were probably a lot shorter than the six feet people that we have today, but he was a big guy, so he would have stood way above the rest of them, and he definitely had some strength in him.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Philistines are they're fighting the Philistines.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's a member of the Philistine army, and David uh ends up taking a stone and a sling, and he accidentally and he actually kills Goliath by uh throwing, I don't know, whatever, I don't know how to do it.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, throws the stone and the sling at Goliath.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so David, pretty popular guy, because he killed Goliath, the one who was overcoming it.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the thing you should know about people in leadership, and people particularly who are kings, they like to be the most popular person.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: So actually, in the chapter right before we read here, the all the David comes in, they have thrown this big parade, and and they're saying, Saul killed thousands, and everybody goes, Yay! And then the women all go, and David killed tens of thousands, and everybody goes, Yay! And you can imagine Saul, right?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa, whoa, whoa, David, step away.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's the characters.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: But Jonathan, Saul's son, liked David very much.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to the next one.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: So Jonathan warned David, my father Saul is trying to kill you.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Be on guard tomorrow morning.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Stay somewhere safe and hide.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So Jonathan, wait, can next I'll go out and stand by my father in the field where you'll be.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'll talk to my father about you and I'll tell you whatever I find out.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is a critical moment in Jonathan and David's relationship.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is the point where Jonathan has put himself in danger in order to protect who?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: David.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Jonathan's put himself in danger to protect David.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: They have a very tight relationship here.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: A very tight friendship here.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things we might glean from that is that when vulnerability or relationships in general are at work, danger is inherent.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Risk is there.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can't get away from it.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Danger is inherent.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: We know that.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because we put up the walls.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to tell you that you put up walls.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: You you could name the walls right now.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to because not very comfortable to be vulnerable among these people, but like you could name the walls right now.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really interesting, and it's something I thought about here because the danger present is not necessarily between the two of them.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's an external danger that steps in that becomes dangerous between them.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because all of a sudden, for Jonathan to talk to his best friend, there's a danger involved there.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it's an external danger because it's from Saul.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think this happens too, and and maybe this is maybe this is a help for you, and maybe it's not.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: But how many times has there been a wall between you and somebody else because of what a family member might say?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because of somebody who has an opinion about something else.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of societal norms and cultural differences that step between people.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like I can be vulnerable with somebody who is different than me societally or racially or whatever, because there's that norm that is placing that wall there.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see how it's not all just this internal trauma stuff?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's sometimes controlled by outside forces as well.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: As well.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, there are the traumas that happen.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would say there's also religious and in this world right now, ideological problems.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: We just came out of a pretty contentious fight.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And to be honest with you, it's going to be contentious for another, you know, forever.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of you may have had friends that voted differently than you did, and you've chosen to close yourself off from them because of those things.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because that conversation is really hard.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: There is some danger in crossing that divide or talking openly about how you feel about those things.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's danger involved there.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Vulnerability is really scary because of that danger.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's because of that risk.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: When you're vulnerable to somebody, and to be vulnerable just means to let out your emotions, your feelings, your whatever, whatever's on your chest that you're not no longer hiding anymore.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: When you're vulnerable with somebody, and the risk is there, it's because when you bear yourself, you risk embarrassment.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: You risk judgment.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you bear yourself.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever you're doing that, whenever you're you're trying to break through that barrier, you're risking some sort of judgment there.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let me show you what happens earlier in David and Jonathan's uh life, and you'll see this.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is the previous chapter.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan's life became bound up with David's life, and Jonathan loved David as much as himself.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: From that point forward, Saul kept David in his service and wouldn't allow him to return to his father's household.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Jonathan and David made a covenant together because Jonathan loved David as much as himself.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his armor, as well as his sword, his bow, and his belt.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: It says that they loved each other as much as they loved themselves.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Jonathan takes off the very protections on his body the cloth, the tunic, the clothes, the robe, the armor, the sword, the bow, everything that could provide for that protection, he's given away to David.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see the vulnerable nature of just laying it all on the table right there?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that's really hard.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens in that moment is that David now knows that his actions, they're way more than just words.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because you've probably had a conversation with somebody where you feel like you're about to be vulnerable, you're about to lay some things on the table, and you probably lay about 80% of it.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I actually categorize things in my mind.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that I'm comfortable telling my friends?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that I'm comfortable telling my parents?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe how is it that I'm comfortable behaving here versus here?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you think we change ourselves a little bit?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So when the when the time comes for us to lay all those things on the table, I don't want to create any sort of weird picture here, but I'm just thinking of all the things Jonathan's wearing.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Armor, gone.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sword, bow, gone.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Robe, gone.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that he's fully naked.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say it.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm starting to count the things left.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's accidental.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: He is bearing everything to Jonathan.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean to David.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that everything's on the table.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And all that risk, all that risk is out there.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way that David knows.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Man, he trusts me.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way that David knows.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Man, he's on my side.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine David.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine David being like, are you are you sure are you just saying that?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or like, are you just saying that because you're around me?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're around your father, you might say something else because your father is out to get me.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to kill me.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Are you just saying that?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or possibly, no, no, no, no, no, David.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Lo, let me show you how much I'm laying down my protections.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my sword.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my bow.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my armor.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the very clothes on my back.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to know that I am with you, David.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Vulnerable.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you when you lay down your walls, you bury your soul.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: When you are vulnerable with another person, when you lay it on the table, the scariness never goes away.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Getting over that first hump is really hard.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: But once you've got the trust of that person, once there's a bond with that person, all of a sudden things start to, over time, get better.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to read you a really long part of this passage, but I think it's really helpful because this is after everything's happened.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: David, or Jonathan has given David some instructions about what's going to happen and where David's going to hide and how they're going to find out that everything can be trusted and okay.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And David's trying to escape for his life.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where we land here.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is the 20th chapter for Samuel.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Jonathan answered Saul.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: David begged my permission to go to Bethlehem.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Please let me go, because we have a family sacrifice there in town, and my brother has ordered me to be present.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Please do me a favor and let me swip away so I can see my family.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's why David hasn't been at the king's table.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And at that, Saul got angry at Jonathan.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: You son of a stubborn, rebellious woman.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Other translations might say son of a something else.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Do you think I don't know how you've allied yourself with Jesse's son?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's David.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Shame on you and on the mother who birthed you.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why he's throwing the mother in the bus so much.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: As long as Jesse's son lives on this earth, neither you I know why it's misogyny.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Neither you nor your dynasty will be secure, but have him brought to me because he's a dead man.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: But Jonathan answered his father Saul.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why should David be executed?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: What has he done?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: So far he had only talked with David about it.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And now he's saying, Whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Up against his father.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: At that, Saul threw his spear at Jonathan to strike him.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Jonathan realized that his father intended to kill David.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: So Jonathan got up at the table in a rage, I can imagine.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is like, you know, HBO Max show.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't eat anything on the second day of the new moon because he was worried.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and he was hungry, you know, and was worried about David, and because his father had humiliated him in the morning.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Jonathan went out to the field for the meeting with David, and a young servant boy went with him.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: He said to the boy, Go quickly and retrieve the arrow that I shoot.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the boy ran off and he shot an arrow beyond the boy.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when the boy got to the spot where Jonathan shot the arrow, Jonathan yelled to him, Isn't the arrow past you?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Jonathan yelled again to the boy, quick, hurry up, do you don't just stand there?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: So Jonathan's servant boy gathered up the arrow and came back to his master.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: A boy, the boy had no idea what had happened.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Only Jonathan and David knew.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Jonathan handed his weapons to the boy and told him, Get going, take these back to town.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you don't need to know anything else that happens here.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as the boy was gone, David came out from behind the mound and fell down, face on the ground, bowing low three times.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Don't miss the bowing there.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Bowing low three times, submitting himself.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: The friends kissed each other and cried with each other, but David cried hardest.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then Jonathan said to David, Go in peace.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because the two of us made a solemn pledge in the Lord's name when we said, The Lord is witness between us and between our descendants forever.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is witness between us and between our descendants forever.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you know that I'm in the ordination process in the United Methodist Church.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is generally a three to four to five year process.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you do it the slow way, it's five to seven years.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you do it Bryant's way, it's more like 15.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: And becoming a what they call a fully connection elder.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a process, you write a lot of paperwork, like 130 pages or so, and you submit that.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: You also get some people to do some references for you, which is a very vulnerable act where like you have to like they have to speak honestly about you and your ministry and that sort of things.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, okay, what are they gonna say?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't approve them ahead of time.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh you submit uh a Bible study, like you sh uh leading a Bible study, you have to write some more paperwork and some more paperwork, you have to submit a health report, you have to have your doctor sign off on it, you have to submit your bank account and your debts.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's like buying a house.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I actually think it's more invasive than buying a house was.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in the process, you have to be super vulnerable with a bunch of people who you don't know.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's 60 people who have the ability to read this paperwork, and they're going to interview you on on interview you on it based on what you responded.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine the vulnerability?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a couple things that I was trying to work out in my mind, and some things I just wanted to lift up.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I called one of my my covenant brothers who were in a covenant group together, and he he happens to have served on the board, and so I was just trying to pick his brain about a few things, and and at one point he said, Stop, Bryant, stop.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you there's something else you're not saying?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, actually, there is.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: I told him.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: I won't tell you here today, but I told him and I said, Man, I just I'm this is just a struggle I'm having right now.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, you know what?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares whether you get passed or not?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares whether they say yes or not?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares what they say?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, this might be a really good opportunity for you to be vulnerable in a way you've never been before.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, but like you don't understand, I got these walls up, you know what I'm saying?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I got these things that are just gonna get in the way.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of inherent risk.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people who are gonna read a lot of things about my life and and the things that I go through and the things that I'm interested in, and and and that sort of thing.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he says, Don't you believe that God will protect you?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he said.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: I like remember clear as day.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was driving on Appalachi Parkway when he said it.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: I like remember, it was right, you know where the new culverts is?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right there.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Culver wasn't there at the time, but like right there.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Don't you believe that God will protect you?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure that I did at the moment.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because I could think of a lot of logistical reasons why it just didn't make any sense, it didn't work.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that question stuck with me.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: When David and Jonathan have their final embrace and they're about to split up, David's gonna go somewhere else to remain safe, end up coming back and be king, it's a whole thing.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: But Jonathan stuck his neck out for him, they laid everything on the plate for him.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: They are the best of friends.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, go in peace.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hear that?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Go in peace because the two of us have made a solemn pledge in the Lord's name when we said the Lord is witness between us and between our descendants forever.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, the Lord is here and it brings about peace.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you're being vulnerable with somebody, you're scared of that peace, aren't you?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: There is somebody right now in your life who would benefit, somebody you're close to, who would benefit from hearing your story that hasn't heard it.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: They probably heard 70%.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: They would benefit from your just being vulnerable with them.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: It would build trust more than you could ever imagine.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you one word of warning first.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: This must be done in a safe relationship.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you know which ones are and aren't.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody you can trust, somebody you feel like there's a bond between you, it just needs to be strengthened a bit, but they haven't heard the whole story.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be freaking scary.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be so scary.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you believe God will protect you?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you believe that God will protect you?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's my prayer over you.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's my challenge to you.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have an opportunity to come to the table this morning.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a table where Jesus was vulnerable with us.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: A table where he literally laid it all on the line.