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8: Trusting a Christian Friend · Finding God at Work

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
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This is Finding God at Work.
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Our current series is Gentle Witnesses, sharing the
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good news at work in a way that
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actually makes sense.
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I want you to ask yourself a question.
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Who do you trust most?
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For me, two people immediately come to mind
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when I ask myself that question.
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One is my dad, and the other is
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my wife.
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And it is not lost on me that
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I have a lot to be grateful for,
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that in those relationships I feel that much
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trust.
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There's a lot of people who cannot trust
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their parents or their spouse like that.
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But I trust my dad and I trust
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my wife for the same reason for each
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of them, and that's that each of them
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has seen me, snot-faced, impatient, irritable, depressed,
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unimpressive, discouraged, unhelpful, and has loved me
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and stuck with me anyways.
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They've seen me at my worst, and they've
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still welcomed me, embraced me, loved me.
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If that doesn't build trust, I don't know
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what can.
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I hope that you have someone in your
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life who you can trust like that.
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You can trust when you're at your worst.
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And that's scary.
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It requires getting snot-faced in front of
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someone to know that you can trust someone
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even when they see you snot-faced.
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Requires us to have that courage of healthy
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vulnerability, and we do have to test the
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waters to see who's really worthy of such
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trust.
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But trust is foundational to any meaningful relationship.
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And as we've been looking at, trust is
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foundational to our relationship with God.
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Trust is, in some ways, the heart of
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faith.
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We've been talking about the good news that
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anyone who puts their faith in Jesus and
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Messiah can be saved.
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And yet that faith word has so many
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different aspects.
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I want to talk about three of them.
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This isn't even comprehensive.
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This isn't everything that faith is, but it's
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three key things that faith is.
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And right at the heart is trust.
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So when we look at the relational, psychological
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aspect of faith, faith appears as trust.
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When we talk about putting our faith in
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Jesus, we don't just mean having ideas about
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Jesus or saying certain things about Jesus.
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We don't mean being in a certain kind
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of arrangement to Jesus that is kind of
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beyond our experience.
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We mean having the experience of finding Jesus
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trustworthy and, in fact, trusting Him.
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That's at the heart of faith.
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Now faith has other aspects as well.
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Next to the relational, psychological aspect, we could
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also think of a relational, social aspect or,
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to use a biblical word, a covenantal aspect.
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So faith appears as loyalty in that aspect.
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It's not just that we find Jesus trustworthy.
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It's that we are loyal to Jesus.
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We show allegiance to Him.
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This relates to the older English use of
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the word faith, like, I pledge you my
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faith or I pledge you my troth, being
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faithful to someone, being true to someone, being
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loyal to someone.
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So that's also part of faith.
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And then another aspect of faith, maybe less
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relational in some ways, although still related to
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the person of Jesus, is the intellectual aspect
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of faith.
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And in the intellectual aspect of faith, faith
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appears as belief.
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So in the classic Christian creeds, we confess,
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I believe or we believe in God the
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Father Almighty and then all those different doctrinal
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affirmations.
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So even though at its heart, faith is
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relational trust, that's not incompatible with ideas about
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Jesus.
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It's, in fact, closely connected to ideas about
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Jesus.
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Just like in any other relationship, I have
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ideas about my dad that are interwoven with
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my trust for my dad.
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I have ideas about my wife, Katie, that
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are interwoven with my trust for her.
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Similarly, our ideas about Jesus, the doctrines that
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we affirm as Christians, are interwoven with our
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relational trust of Him.
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And so this is true.
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If this is the foundation of our relationship
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with God, if this is how people get
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saved is by entering into this kind of
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faith that's both trust and loyalty and belief.
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It makes sense that that journey might start
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with trusting us, trusting a Christian friend.
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And that's what we want to talk about
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today.
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So on our last episode, we introduced the
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five thresholds.
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This comes from the 2008 book, I Once
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Was Lost by Don Everts and Doug Shoup,
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leaders from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
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They interviewed over 2,000 adults who had
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come to faith through that ministry and asked
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them, what were the patterns of how you
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came to faith?
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And they saw that there were five patterns,
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five thresholds or steps that people moved through
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on their way to faith in Jesus in
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general, right?
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It's a, it's a pattern.
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Everybody's unique.
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Not everybody fits the pattern in a typical
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way, but it's, it's quite consistent and it
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fits what we see in scripture.
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So it's not surprising.
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The first threshold they found had to do
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with trust, trusting a Christian friend.
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That was the first moment that on the
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journey towards faith in Jesus, for many of
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these adults who eventually came to faith.
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So this kind of leads us, those of
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us who are already committed to Jesus to
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ask, Oh, what could I do so that
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other people could trust me?
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Now I want to put an asterisk right
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here.
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There's a way of misunderstanding this where we
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would reduce trust to a strategy or a
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tactic, right?
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Like, what can I do to get people
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to trust me?
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Uh, almost in a manipulative way, which is
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actually obviously antithetical to genuine trust building.
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Genuine trust is grounded in a trustworthy character.
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It's grounded in who we are as human
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beings.
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So you cannot adopt trust as a strategy
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or a tactic in order to get somebody
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to do something that that's contradictory.
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Um, what you can do is become the
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kind of human being who is trustworthy.
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Not as a strategy, but just because that's
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the kind of human being you want to
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be, and that may open up opportunities where
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you find that people are trusting you.
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So we want to make sure we're not
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putting the cart before the horse here.
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Trust is not ultimately a strategy or a
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tactic.
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It's a way of being.
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It's a reflection of our deepest character.
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Are we trustworthy people?
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Are we the kind of people who honor
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other people's vulnerability, who honor other people's integrity,
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who honor other people's autonomy?
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So the first question we have to ask
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ourselves is what kind of person am I
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becoming?
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And of course, if we're disciples of Jesus,
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that's the first question.
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Anyways, we're looking at Jesus, putting our faith
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in Jesus, trying to learn how to live
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life the way Jesus would live our life
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if he were in our context.
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And that hopefully is making our character more
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like Jesus by the power of the Holy
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Spirit, by the grace of God over time.
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Uh, again, we, we did our series on
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imagining work, then our series on fruitful work,
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and now our series on gentle witnesses.
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We did the fruitful work one first, intentionally.
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We want to be in the path of
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following Jesus, growing in the fruit of the
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spirit before we try and help other people
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onto that path or else, uh, we're going
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to end up, uh, doing more harm than
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good likely.
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We can't just aspire to be trustworthy.
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We have to actually become more trustworthy in
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our relationships over time.
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Okay.
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Now it goes without saying, but I'm going
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to say it anyways.
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Christians have often not done a good job
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of this.
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And I want to read a quote from,
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um, Don Edwards and Doug Chapp's book to
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this effect.
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So, uh, this is from their chapter on,
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uh, threshold one, trusting a Christian friend.
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They write, when people first find out we
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are Christians, we often literally see them shift
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from relaxed to rigid, from warm to suspicious.
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This is because when our friends first hear
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us call ourselves Christians, several negative things often
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immediately flash through their minds.
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Christians are self-righteous and they always think
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they're better than me.
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I'm about to get judged.
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So I better get my defenses up.
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Christians are naive and narrow-minded and they
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believe in fairy tales.
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Christians are always pressing politics.
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So watch out.
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And if you're a follower of Jesus, you've
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probably had this experience where the reputation of
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Christians in general affects how other people perceive
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you.
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And we, as Christians, we shouldn't just disassociate
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ourselves from like, oh, those Christians who have
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earned that reputation, like we ourselves and our
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own imperfections and sin have contributed to the
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bad reputation that Christians have, hopefully not in
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the most extreme ways ourselves personally, but we
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would fall into a self-righteous attitude by
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saying, Oh, I'm not like those Christians.
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No, no, no.
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It's yes, Christians have often messed up and
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I'm learning how to mess up less as
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I follow Jesus.
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I'm learning how to be somebody who's humble
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rather than self-righteous, who's inclusive rather than
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judgmental, who's gentle rather than brash.
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And I still have learning to do on
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those things myself.
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So we have to acknowledge, wow, we as
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Christians have often earned our bad reputation and
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that's why people are not super willing to
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trust us.
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Similarly, we have to earn a good reputation,
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each of us individually and each Christian community
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as a community, by demonstrating that we actually
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are bearing the fruit of the spirit, that
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we actually are trustworthy because we are growing
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in gentleness and honor and respect and our
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capacity to listen to other people.
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So what does that look like in practice?
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Again, from the book, there are five patterns
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that Don Everton and Doug Shoppe identify as
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our knee jerk reactions to distrust.
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So just like other people might have a
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knee jerk reaction to our identity as followers
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of Christ or as Christians, based on their
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experience with other Christians or the reputation of
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Christians, we similarly could have a knee jerk
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reaction to other people's response to us.
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We could have a knee jerk reaction to
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other people's distrust.
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And so the five knee jerk reactions that
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are identified are defend, bruise, avoid, judge or
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argue.
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And those are all pretty self-explanatory, right?
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We can get defensive, we can bruise, like
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we can we can feel like, oh gosh,
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I can't believe they think that about me,
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have our ego be really sensitive and damaged.
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We can avoid.
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So just like never try and bring up
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faith topics again with anybody.
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We can judge so we can respond again,
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another expression of defensiveness, feeling superior to other
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people, or we can argue.
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We can feel like we're going to we're
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going to prove other people wrong and have
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our way.
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And unfortunately, these five knee jerk reactions often
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parade as though they are sharing the good
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news, as though by being judgmental and argumentative,
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we're being really authentic, bold witnesses.
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When in reality, we're just being obnoxious.
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And so that's not the approach that we
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need to take.
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We need to be emotionally self-aware of,
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wow, how is this other person's perspective about
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me affecting me?
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Do I feel defensive?
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Does the other person seem to be defensive
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and and work toward building trust, diffusing some
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of that tension?
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Again, building a reputation by your own genuine
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character that can set the other person at
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ease.
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So what does that look like?
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Well, it looks a lot like listening.
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It looks like getting to know other people's
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story.
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We talked about that in our last episode.
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It also looks like bonding, connecting with other
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people, having fun with other people.
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And so as you think how to live
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out building trust in your work relationships, what
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you want to be thinking about is how
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can I have fun with the people I
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connect with at work?
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Whether those are coworkers, clients, partners, other people
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you might cross paths with at work.
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Where are those opportunities for relational connection?
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If you are a remote worker, this can
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be really challenging because it's not like you
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have the shared lunchroom or the literal water
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cooler to have a conversation.
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And so you got to figure out what
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are those opportunities to have fun with somebody.
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Maybe it's when you and another person are
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the first two onto a Microsoft Teams call
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or a Zoom call and nobody else has
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shown up yet, use that moment to build
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relational trust.
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Ask about them, ask how their day is
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going, get to know them, crack a joke,
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whatever is authentic for your personality.
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But use that moment to build some relational
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cache with that person.
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If you're in an embodied environment, it's that
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much easier.
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Think about where are the opportunities to really
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build friendship connection with other people?
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Is it lunch break?
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Can I show up at lunch break in
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the shared break room?
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If such a place exists at your workplace,
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can I find a friend who maybe likes
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to go for walks and we take a
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walk together on the same day as part
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of a mental break from work?
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Whatever this is, look for the opportunity.
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And again, this is going to depend on
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your personality.
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Maybe you don't want to eat at a
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lunch with like 15 other people, but you
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can find that one person, that one opportunity
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that God is pointing out like, hey, this
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is a person where you could build trust.
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You could build a friendship with this person.
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And again, we're not doing this in an
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agenda driven way to manipulate people, to try
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and get them to do something.
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We're authentically building real friendships because we want
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to love the people around us in our
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workplace.
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And that's going to be the foundation for
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anything else that might come up as an
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opportunity to share the good news.
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Lord Jesus, thank you for giving us a
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way to come into your life, giving us
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a way to come into your kingdom through
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faith, through trusting you, through being loyal to
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you, through believing you.
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And we know how much we fall short
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of being trustworthy as friends, as people, as
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family members, as brothers and sisters in Christ.
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We ask that you, by your grace, would
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make us more trustworthy, make us more worthy
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of the vulnerability and the friendship of our
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co-workers and others who we get to
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know in our workplaces.
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Show us how to build that trust.
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Do your work in us as we do
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our work with you.
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Thanks for listening.
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