Communication Skills of Jesus

I wanted to talk about the social or the communication skills that Jesus Christ had.

His example of such has been called communication skills, people skills. He knew how to talk to people, and that's one of the biggest things we have to learn, how to talk to people. So let's take a look at that. Christ always knew what to say. If you're like me, unlike you, say something and there's a perfect answer, but you can't quite think of it.

And then it comes to you one or two days later, the perfect squelch, or the perfect words of grace to have said, and you missed it, you know, but you think of it later. But he thought of it right then. He knew what to say, of course, just perfectly. He had opponents. They tried to get the best of him. They tried to constantly trap him. They were after, to at least embarrass, and maybe hurt his ministry. They didn't realize how much they were inspired by Satan. But they were always after him. With great skill in his use of language, he always came out on top. And I thought many times, maybe you have, wouldn't it be great to have that skill so you knew what to say at the right time, whether it's just in conversation, whether you're trying to encourage somebody. And there seems to be a special interest in answering some smart, elite question where they're putting you on the defensive. And that's probably carnality, too, especially just think that's to emphasize that. But it would be good. And Christ said he has set us an example, a perfect example. We're supposed to do what he did. That's mentioned in 1 Peter 2, 21.

I'd like also John 14, 12, I'm telling you the truth that those who believe in me will do what I do. Yes, they will do even greater things. And he said because he was going away and he was going to send the Holy Spirit back and we would do greater things. And I thought about this over the years, starting when I was a kid, I thought, how can I follow Christ's example, David's example I did better at. Of course, he had mixed example. But he was a real person, or Peter, you know, I can see what not to do and what to do, or a lot of the Moses. But Christ was harder for me to visualize following his example. So I said, you know, I can't feed 9,000 people on the side of the hill. I can't walk on water. I can't do all these miracles. I would love to be able to heal.

That might be my most desired gift. If I could just tell certain people in this room, the one I was at this morning, go back to Omaha and Des Moines, talk to people who are in pain all the time. And whatever I would say, whatever God would lead me to say, God would just heal them.

Wow! I would really like that, but I can't follow that example yet. I'm looking forward to it. We've got some training in the meantime. So how did Christ have this skill with words? Well, somebody will say, well, he was God. And then close that chapter and go on. We don't have to worry about it because we aren't God yet. And no, no, no, he taught us things. He gave us examples.

And if they're not on the surface, if you look at him carefully at what he did, sometimes what he didn't do and or what he said or didn't say, and we can gain a lot. And he intends that we grow in this way of having skill at communicating. God's work is basically communication. You can describe it in other ways, but really God's work has always been about communication. So I'd like to look at some of his skills. There are four principles to start with that are foundational, and they have to be there in place. And then after that, I was I was telling the truth, but I was still kidding that there are at least 100 points later or 100 points to follow that. I mean, and there are, but I have five or six to point out. So that's, in your studies, you can be looking for these things if you hadn't approached it this way. Maybe you have, and that's good. Anyway, the first principle here, and of course he was God in the flesh. And so that's the reason he would be able to have this perfection in his speaking. He was the Lamb of God. But the first principle for us to learn in terms of how he did this, what example to follow, is that we need to go and get God's inspiration. Now, that sounds pretty trite.

Obviously, that would be the first thing to do is go. But consider just a little bit more.

James 1 verse 5. The gift of perception, wisdom, insight. There's much in the Bible about God inspiring us for specific things like this. James 1.5, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, and God gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not, and shall be given to him. So God has stated this, and he said in John 14 and following four times, whatever you want, I'll give it to you.

But it's hard for us to believe that, but he really did say that, and he really meant it.

So it bears more study. Well, how does this work? When God hears you ask him for wisdom, he sometimes will put the words right in your mouth, the thought right in your mind, when you need it. But a lot of times he'll go ahead and give you experiences. You'll talk to somebody, meet somebody, and see something else, read something in the newspaper, read a scripture in the next three or four days, and you'll have an insight because you asked for it.

How do I handle this situation? And then you talk it over with God, and sometimes if it doesn't come right, then you continue to think of it. He will do that. And it says he upbraids not. It's an old word, but don't use it. It means he doesn't pick at you and complain. Okay, well, okay, I'll give you wisdom. But you know, you didn't pray long enough yesterday. And you're always doing this and that, and pick, pick, pick, pick. Humans do that. Have you ever done that yourself, given something to somebody kind of begrudgingly? And if not out loud, pick against them, or you receive something, and then you hear this upbraiding, this picking.

God doesn't do that. He just gives. He's just good, holy, through and through, because he's bringing all of us, those he hasn't enlightened yet on one thing or another, or a lot of things, he's still bringing all of us toward himself. So God gives these things. Speaking involves wisdom. It's one of the main, almost, almost, almost the same thing sometimes. But notice in Luke 21, this is verses 13 to 15. This is a specific instance where you're on trial.

You've been hauled before the judge. You're going to have to answer for your faith or answer for whatever. This is really a serious thing. It's worse than just being sued. You could lose your life. A lot of the apostles and a lot of people over years have gone in this situation. And I hope you never do, and I hope I never do, but if we do. Or whenever a situation comes up and you really need God to help you and have the right words, that's when they'll come.

He said, settle it, therefore, in your hearts not to meditate before what you shall answer. This verse is important. This statement is important to give the setting. The setting here is that you might be meditating and trying to figure out a way to answer to get yourself off the hook. The way it's stated is broader than that, a wider spectrum than that. It can mean several things, but that seems to be one of the elements, at least behind it. And I'm supposed to try to figure out, now how am I going to present this?

It might not be so threatening. It might be more benign. But he said, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gain, say, or resist. This is what Christ did. And you think of going through his four trials, the four times he has questioned, plus whatever he went through with the officers. And as he went through that last 24 hours toward his crucifixion, he could have gotten out of it easily. He even said, I could get out of this, but I want to do this. My father would send me legions of angels. There's no problem. I don't have to do this.

I want to. And so he set it up. Read that carefully. He poked him in the eye once, and then he poked him in the eye the other time. By the time they got to the time where they were, because of the plan of God, they needed to kill him. They were so mad, they were out of control. And they did. And Christ controlled that and led them up to the perfect evil attitude. Just let them just go ahead and follow their own natures and Satan. So they would do that evil deed. At other times, he poured water on the oil on the water and smoothed things out and postponed this big crisis.

But he said that he would give us the perfect answer. In Stephen's case, the perfect answer brought on immediate death. That was the first martyr. Most of the time, he gives you the perfect answer, and it explains something well or really helps the other person. But he will give you what you need to say when you need the right words to say. And he just brings up this is a really critical time. So the first principle is, go ask God for skill in communicating.

If you have a big meeting or if you have a small meeting, or if you're going to whatever, ask God for help in that. That's one big area of wisdom, and he simply makes a promise to us and tells us to go ask him. Go do that. That's the first principle. If you want to have the communication skills or the people skills of Jesus Christ, the second one is the second principle, and the second and third overlap quite a bit. But get God's attitude of outgoing concern or godly love.

I'm sure you've talked to somebody, and you can tell there's an edge on their voice. They just don't like you. And maybe it gets a little snarky, a little comment here and there. You can tell if a person who really does respect you, you can tell if a speaker, like, you know, you get up and speak like this, does this guy think you're worth speaking to? Do I just have to do that? Or is there a genuine respect for God and a desire to serve God and honor these people that he's called, my brothers and sisters? You can tell a lot about that. You can tell the same speaker, well, he's having a great day. Well, he's struggling today. Well, he's this a lot. But you can tell what attitude is coming out. And in your personal discussions with people, God has given us a lot of this perception just as a part of our mentality. And if you've got some sort of an attitude going and you are disrespectful of the people you're talking to or the person you're talking to, they can tell it.

You can tell it's so can they. So if you're close to God, or at least reasonably so, you know, nobody's perfect. And that comes and goes with their attitudes. But if you have God's spirit working in you, that means God is in you, and some situation comes up, what's going to come out of you is going to be recognized as something positive. And maybe they'll know it's God's spirit. Maybe they won't. But if your attitude is off and you start talking with somebody, the whole audience here, or the church in general, or an individual, whether interact, and your attitude is off, it's just going to come out. Have you ever seen that start to happen? Excuse me. And you realize this is an emergency. So you excuse yourself to go get a drink or go to the bathroom or get out of there some way and send up an emergency request. Would you please resolve all this stuff, all those issues I'm thinking about, and help me? I need this. This is your work. I'm supposed to be representing you to, you know, whoever it might be, in or out of the church. Send up an emergency request. Straighten my attitude out and make me a useful instrument in your hands.

Ever done that? I suspect a lot of people have. I sure have. David said, you know, set a guard up my mouth. And so I figured that was David. I better ask God for two. So sometimes I only half-jokingly ask God to set two carabim with shining swords by my mouth and don't let anything stupid come out, because it's just possible it's happened, you know, it can happen. So the idea of going to get God's attitude sometimes, and I think all of the speakers, those who speak in church, know that far more important than choosing the particular words and the order you'll give the scriptures in and things like that, far more important is to get help from God so that you're in the right attitude. And then if you goof up or get something wrong, it doesn't matter, because people will get the spirit of it. They'll get what you're saying, because God will bless it coming out of you and bless it coming out of whoever's speaking and bless it coming into whoever is listening. If the spirit is there, then something spiritual will be done, it'll be good. Okay, so that's the second principle is to get God's attitude towards others, making sure you have a respectful and attitude of love, first towards God and then towards whoever, before you start. Now, Christ talked about this, and he talked about the opposite. I want to look at the opposite of this because he also mentioned several times the evil eye. Remember the comments by Christ? He talked about the evil eye, a few times, having counted them actually. But he talked about, but if your eye is evil, that's Matthew 6.23, the whole body is full of darkness. Therefore, the light that is in you is darkness. How great is that darkness? It goes back to your attitude. The evil eye is an old saying, very old, in different languages, and it has to do with the way you look at a person. You know, the narrowing of your eye, say you're jealous or mad at him for some reason, or just disliking or despising, contempt, just about the worst. You can tell sometimes if you walked into a room and something wasn't quite right, and pretty soon you identify the person or persons. If you find, sometimes you almost feel it, but if you lock eyes with somebody, you say, what's in there? Christ said it's the window to the soul. And you can tell what attitude. As a matter of fact, Luke 11.34 is the one that mentions this, the light of the body is the eye. Therefore, when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light. It's talking about the attitude that comes out of the eyes. I've read some literature on this. I like to do a lot of study on it, but the Christ comment that the eye is the window to the soul is really true. You lock eyes, and you already know a lot about what's going on in that person's mind before you even say anything, or they should say anything. And if there's some real attitude towards you, you can perceive it unless people try to... and we should, if we're struggling with an attitude, we should try, but you can just tell something. And you can also tell us if somebody's just sort of normal, you know, good to see you, I think. What do you got to say? You know, just kind of neutral and open, glad to meet somebody. Or if somebody has a reason, they're anxious to meet you, they want to talk to you, they're welcoming, glad to see you. You can tell those things in an instant.

As a matter of fact, there's this great book by the name of... it's just called Blink.

William... I can't remember his last name. Anyway, it's called Blink. It's a great book, and it talks about what you learn in the blink of an eye. And if your blink is, for most people, less than three-fourths of a second, you know, you see something and it's cut off, then you don't get it. But if it's like three-fourths of a second, or just a little bit more of that, your brain will capture a whole picture and you'll pull up not just what you see, but what's going on.

And that's for most people. Some people are faster and some slower.

But the light... Christ said this about the evil eye and having light in your eye.

It talks about this attitude, and specifically, that he has toward people. The God, the Father, it's a godly attitude versus what Satan has. And the eye is the window of the soul. It's just a fascinating concept. But he's talking about this either outgoing concern and love for others, respect, or the opposite.

The Pharisees, and by looking at the negative side of this, we can learn a lot about positive as well. The Pharisees' attitude was always polluted with jealousy and hatred and envy and and so on, which we have plenty of examples of that.

What they didn't know is that that attitude, the evil eye toward Christ or anybody, threw them off in several ways. In the first place, they couldn't see things quite right.

And that led to not being able to judge what the other person's attitude was and what he was.

But there was another major factor to this, too, and that is they couldn't see how they were being perceived. It made them vulnerable, and they couldn't think straight. They didn't have good logic. When you're all upset, that's the time to not make a major decision. Calm down, cool down, pray about it, visit somebody else, or get straightened out before you go on to make big decisions.

So, the Pharisees fell into this, Sadducees, Herodians, and all of them, and they would always put themselves out, kind of unalem, and make themselves vulnerable, but they didn't see it. Ha! We'll get him on this one! Okay, taxes. There's a lot of opinions on taxes. Somebody will hate him, no matter what he says. So, okay, should we pay taxes? Because there was a group that said, no, you shouldn't, to the Romans. Some things never change. And there was a group that thought, of course, the Romans didn't like the idea of paying the temple tax, which was very small. And I said, we'll get him on this one. And his answer, you know the story. He said, well, whose picture is this on this coin? Well, it was Caesar. He said, okay, render to Caesar. Why does Caesar should render to God? What is God's? They couldn't complain about it. They just set themselves up so beautifully, and they did that because their eye was evil. They didn't have a right attitude. So, if you're going to be able to, and we would like to, present ourselves well, and not set ourselves up for ridicule or anything, get God's attitude and get rid of Satan's attitude. It does funny things to you. They kept thinking this. Well, we'll get him this time. You know, we'll set this trap. And they just fell into their own pits, like the Proverbs say continually. Or is that Psalms? Both.

When you look at what Christ's attitude was, all through there was concern for people.

But real, you know, it says he resists the proud. Real resistance to those who were prideful, prideful, pardon me, and that would be the Pharisees. You know, they caught this woman in the act of adultery, they said. And that must have been the worst day of her life, embarrassment, and everything else. We've talked about their not ever mentioning the man.

So that shows something about the culture and about those hypocritical leaders. But anyway, they brought her up there and they were trying to trick him and say, well, she should be stoned because that's what the law said. But they were into the Romans and didn't, you know, there was a stronger law to them, as the Romans were in charge on allowed and disallowed things. And so, he wrote on the ground and he said, he that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. But the thing is, they kept asking him, you know, kept nagging. Well, you know, it wouldn't take no for an answer and kept after it. And it kind of reminds you of the press these days, the media, you know, the answer is obvious. Well, nag, nag, nag, we'll get him by nagging. And they did this to Christ in this case, in this instance. And he actually stooped down and wrote a second time, maybe the second time they paid attention, whatever it is, wrote, bothered their conscience so badly they walked out. And so, he convinced them to leave off the attack. And that's what it was. They weren't concerned with righteousness. And then he told the woman, A, you've got to quit sinning. But maybe the first most important is what he said first, and that is, I'm not condemning you. You're not condemned, but you have to repent. That's what he tells all of us. But the lesson there is that because of their evil attitude, it threw off their judgment. And they set themselves up over and over, and they were shown to be petty and hateful and jealous. Another example, I like this because it's kind of special. There are three miracles that a lot of commentaries, or at least some commentaries, say, well, we don't know why they threw them in there. Mark and Luke. And they're just kind of extra miracles. They don't have any special meaning. It's the one where the man had this withered hand. It was the whole arm, and he couldn't stretch it out. And it was the right one. That's important in this example. And the woman who was bent over, who wasn't 18 years or a dozen years, and just bent over, and he healed her. And the man with the dropsy, this huge leg, you know, edema. I have a friend, and her leg at one time was three times as big as the other one, because she couldn't get rid of the water. And it was actually giving her congestive heart failure. So it was a very serious thing, and he didn't say anything about this guy, except that he was there, and he had this dropsy, or edema. And they say, those are just extra miracles. They don't mean anything. He healed them. How wrong can you be? Don't ever say that, oh, God just did something without a purpose. He just felt that way. No, no, no, that's not God. That would be a human.

Okay, so who was this guy, and what did Christ say? We're looking at the Pharisees' attitude and Christ's attitude to follow, and then it's interesting to know who he was.

Quickly, move on through this example. All three of these people, the three miracles, stand for and typify people on earth today. There's different kinds of people that are in situations God's working with. The man with the withered hand was standing on the sidelines, or sitting, he was on the sidelines. Apparently a plant, they did this several times, and they were watching. Now, is he going to heal on the Sabbath? We'll get him.

And so it says, Christ's attitude was he was really grieved with their filthy rotten attitude. Here this guy is, his hand doesn't work. That means he can't get a regular job. He's been, A, poor, B, ridiculed all of his life. People are cruel. And so there he is. He hangs on to the one thing he has. He's able to come into the synagogue. I'm adding a lot, but this is probably mostly correct. His situation wasn't good in any way. But Christ, then, being agreed to their rotten attitudes gives him a command. And he says, stand forth.

I can't wait to see the replay on this. We are going to have that, by the way. God's going to show us. I'm positive. And the man, this is unusual in human history anyway, the man actually obeyed what God said. So he walks down into the middle or somewhere, and you know, he comes off the wall and walks in the middle. And then that's when it says the Pharisees were, Christ was so aggravated with him. But then he told them to do something that he couldn't do. It was the one thing that he specifically couldn't do. He couldn't stretch his right hand out. His left hand worked, apparently. Fine. And he just said, stretch forth your hand. The man obeyed the first time in his life, in both hands' work. And he was joyful and everything. And Christ, of course, had asked him, is it okay to, should I heal on the Sabbath? Or would it be rather, would it be just as well to, you know, let this poor guy just go on in his misery? And they were, again, having miscalculated because of their animus towards Christ. They miscalculated the whole situation. They just threw their judgment off. And they were made, it was obvious they were made fools. He had healed on the Sabbath before, you know, and they thought they could work it this time. So if you have, here's the lesson, if you have an evil eye, it throws off your judgment. So if you're going to talk to somebody, you hope to be successful in any way, get rid of your attitude that's wrong, and go to God and get a right attitude, then at least you can start.

The other lesson is, who was this guy? Well, he was alive. He was a person. And he's told by Christ to come down here in, where were they? Synagogue in the church.

That reminded me of anybody like all of us. God has called us and said, come into the church. And then he tells us to do what we can't do. Right hand actually has to do with, it's a symbol of your action and your ability to accomplish. He tells us to obey God, which can't do without His help, and to become converted, which we absolutely can't do.

And then he does it. This man does it. That would be us. We've taken up God's command. We say, okay, I am going to do this. I don't have the first nail or shingle. I'm building the tower anyway. I don't have even one soldier to help me, but I'm going up against the king with 20,000. You know, the two examples Christ made.

I'm going to go with this, even though I can't, but I'm going to trust God to do it. Okay, so the other two are very, very interesting to you. Two, I'll leave that to you to study. But in these examples, you see they just repeatedly, their judgment was off because their attitude was off. And they couldn't think straight. So they tried to do evil to Christ, and they didn't. The third principle is, know your mission. So I'll review them. The first principle is, get God's inspiration. Secondly, get His attitude. Thirdly, they're closely related, is know your mission. Christ talked about His mission constantly, all the time, through His whole work. He talked about why He was there, what He was doing, and we know a lot about it because of that. He knew exactly why He was living, of course, and what He was doing every day.

And when He was talking to every person, He seemed to just know, just be clear, able to say specifically what was needed because He knew exactly what He was doing on earth. And the question would be, what is your mission? I kind of don't like writing all these fancy mission statements. And by the time I finish writing it, then I've forgotten the first part anyway. And it's, some people, it's helpful. I think it's better to understand the principle of it and know why you're here. But could you do that? Let's say, just in a short sentence, what is your mission?

What could you say? You'd probably say several things. Christ, of course, had excellent things that He told us. Some examples, I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. Well, that's His whole mission. But He also said, He restated it.

I have come so that they could have everlasting life. I have come. And John wrote this about His writing the whole book, you know, so that you can believe. I've written all these, the signs, the seven signs He did in John, and all these things so that you could believe. And we could write several more books. He said all the books in the world wouldn't hold it. But He said, this is enough, and it's so you can believe. So that was one of the mission statements of Christ. That's why He did that and why John wrote about it. He said He had come so He could send a comforter.

He had come for the purposes of teaching us all truth through the Holy Spirit.

And He said a lot of other things like, answer your prayers for whatever you ask, whatever you want.

And so on and so forth. The reason I say so on and so forth is that He restated it in many ways, and so could you. I wrote out one and then realized quickly there were many purposes. Mine is to please God and serve Him and fellow man by serving man. You're also serving God.

Okay, but I also could say several other things that come from the Bible that are true that would be my purpose. So I'm going to leave that exercise to you. Whatever it is, and there are different aspects, but we all we need to think about this so that when we need that, that thought will already be there. We'll have meditated about it. And when you are thinking, you know, what should I do here?

It comes to you because you thought you thought out this. What is my purpose? And saying it in many different ways is very useful as well, which is again following Christ's example in that. I think I'm going to skip several of the restatements that I have. One is all you that are heavy laden are heavy-litted down. Come to me and I'll give you a rest.

Just one more. I'm just going to skip because you got the idea. You need to have your mission. You need to know what you're doing and why you're doing it. And we, of course, renew that every Sabbath when we come and study many various statements of Christ's mission and of our mission, our commission.

The fourth principle is something that only God can do well, but we're supposed to learn, and that's part of the whole thing. And that is learn to read hearts. I actually have read this in other places, but I don't think that the full meaning is there a lot of times when it's written.

But this is what Christ did in the first place. Thou, Lord, which knows the hearts of all men, show us an answer. That's in Acts 1.24. So there are a few scriptures about that.

Thou, Lord, who knows the hearts of all men, taken from several in the Old Testament as well.

John 2. I'd like to read 23, 24, and 25 of John 2. Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles, which he did, naturally. They're impressive. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men.

Look at different translations of the Greek words there. He knew the hearts of all men. He knew what they were thinking. He knew what everybody he could look and tell. And that's related to this ability that we have that is given to a limited degree to us. And we need to work on that and he will enhance that. So we need to learn to read other people. Verse 25, and he didn't need that anybody should testify of man because he already knew what was in man.

Different translation says he didn't need to be told what was in their hearts because he already knew what was in their hearts. So that's useful. So Christ knew, and we don't know, so we have to judge by their fruits. But we can know by their actions and fruits and their words and looking into their eyes, you know, the window to the soul and talking with them, having conversations. We can learn a lot and understand and get to the bottom of it. We can read the emotions and the spirit and the attitude because you don't go too far.

And what's in the heart comes out. You know, it says there are many words. There's going to be some sin there because what's in the heart will come out. So you don't get too far, not too many words, in what you think, what's in your heart comes out, the attitude and spirit. And that's what we are supposed to read. Romans 8.26 is the best scripture I'm aware of about this.

And I love this. Well, the whole chapter. Likewise, the Spirit also helps our infirmities or our lacks where we need help. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought. Have you ever gotten down and you start to pray and put it a different way? And finally say, I just actually don't know how to say this, but I've got this problem here. And I need your help. I need your attitude. I need some insight. I don't know. I just have to have your help here. The Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Sometimes we feel things or know things and you don't really have the words for them. And so God, who knows the attitude and heart of everyone, can look into our hearts and read our spirit, which is, you have to say, our attitude, but not just our temporary attitude that we're in at the moment. But you put them all together and he reads our hearts. And so I can put it that way. We can't do it like God does, but he will help us. That's what he's helping us do. The next verse says, And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit. So in this, when you don't really know what to pray and you're trying and just asking God for help of a kind that you can't really even articulate, you just need him to step in here in your mind Spirit, he reads that. That's an exciting thing to think about because he knows far more about what we're thinking and what our attitudes are and where our heart is than we do. It's a matter to a great degree of him revealing to us what our own hearts are, what our Spirit is. He reads the Spirit that we have. And then God does through the Holy Spirit and makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Read the rest of the Scripture. So these points I've given you four foundational points. Have you noticed how trite they were? How commonplace and not really meaningful? They've been said so many times that people listen to them and don't get them. So I'm just saying these are really important spiritual principles. Go to God and ask for him to inspire you. Ask for his Spirit. That's one thing that we pray right at the early part.

I think it's my most desperate prayer in the Lord's Prayer that I use most every day to start out with, or at least a lot of the days. The second principle, but first, get God's inspiration. Go ask him for his inspiration. Second point too is get God's attitude of outgoing concern. Check your attitude. What's my attitude towards this person? I've learned to do that a lot, and I actually need to think about that more. But get the right attitude towards this other person or group or whatever, and mainly just get it off yourself. It's, I think, one of the biggest things about speaking to the church or counseling in any way in terms of helping somebody spiritually. Ask God to help you to get your mind off yourself. We naturally go there.

Third is know your mission, and these four are all so closely related. The fourth is doing the result of those three, and that is being able to read, where is this person really? Maybe they don't know, but at least you need to know the best you can of where you are and what your attitude is toward them. Now, I have a little bit of time, and I have, I was, nobody seemed to laugh this morning when I said this, but the other hundred points.

This, I guess, is not that funny, but you see, those are foundational. When you get God's help, and this one woman in Omaha made this comment. She said, you know, it's like Christ has an unfair advantage over us in being able to communicate. And I thought, well, I told her that really is the point. We can gain, and you could call it unfair, but we're supposed to be able to gain tremendous power and advantage in being able to communicate with people, and say people skills, and helping people. It comes from God, and that's the whole point. And so, if we're going to follow Christ's example, we're going to have to have this foundation. Could I read, or at least mention briefly, several other of these areas in which we can read about and learn about his skills in handling people. I thought, you know, I was going to count them. I came up to, I was up around 30 or 35, and then I realized some more, it was over 50, and then I began, you know, I went out, and there were over 100. So there are a lot of many examples. In it's up, actually, the way you learn these things is you analyze it. Some things that he did, you can just read it, and he did that. But other things, you have to back off and see the whole pattern. Sometimes it's what he did, but left out.

There are, sometimes you can be divinely, wisely, carefully, insightfully evasive. There's sometimes he went away from the crowd, he let him go ahead and have their rumblings, and so on. There are other times he faced them. It was different, different times in different situations. He just knew what to do in every single circumstance.

There are sometimes he went away. Remember he destroyed the herd of pigs, cast the demons out, and so on. They didn't like that. It was, go away, and he said, okay. He just slipped away.

You need to know when to hold him, when to fold him, I think Kenny Rogers said, a few other wise pieces of advice. You have to judge the situation, and that's part of reading what the attitude of this person, this crowd, this group, this family is. I want to mention two or three of these things real quickly. I'm going to check the time. One time, I somehow got the time that churches started, and I got it mixed up, and I would say I went over five hours. I didn't, but I did get it a half hour wrong, and I used the whole time.

I was embarrassed. So we started here a little bit after two, and the full service would go to four, but we don't necessarily have to. So, good. A couple of points.

It'll be worth a while just to illustrate. One of the things that Christ was, was he was well-informed. Of course he was well-informed. It's an example for us, though. But it came out not just in general with vast knowledge, but being well-informed in an area they call it our common history. And they say this is the glue. I actually have a quote from a book on this particular one. And that is to be, in general, well-versed and knowledgeable and well-read, and then know your common history, because that is the glue of a culture.

He was talking about just knowing what is going on around you, and that way being relevant in your conversation in both churches. The fact that we had a bad week in the nation, this terrible shooting, that's cultural knowledge in the present. But knowing what books, cultural literacy is written about, a book about books, but also that includes some news. It includes movies. There are a lot of movies that are referred to, and they're used like just books were before movies. And common circumstances, because when you can speak, when you're well-versed in general, and you know the common circumstances of a group, then you can communicate with them with a decided advantage. As a matter of fact, being generally knowledgeable of your own group—in this case, I'm not going to say just Wisconsin, Milwaukee, a smaller group, the church here, the church in general—all these are communities that we operate in. And in order to communicate with each other effectively, we need to know what's going on in each of these communities. I'm going to just highlight the church.

We're told, actually, to be very knowledgeable and to love one another. And if you try to really love one another and just don't really know much about them, you're going to have poor results.

You feel real compassion. Somebody is sick, or somebody has some hard times, or you really like somebody. But when you get to know people, that's when your compassion is triggered.

And maybe you'll rub some sharp edges, have some conflicts, and resolve them. Anyway, it's this whole experience together that brings a family together, is the same way with the church family. So we need to know and have a lot of fellowship. So God is arranged for Sabbath, holidays, potlucks, all kinds of stuff that He invented that we figured out.

All kinds of different fellowship is good within the church. But this quote is a book on business, and I just wanted to read this about knowing a lot about the other people that we know. Not just knowing them on one plane, but having an extensive knowledge about what's going on. In this case, I'm talking about the church. There is an advantage that goes to the person who is well informed about his or her career. Get to know and understand the powers who monitor and protect the path forward. Begin to position yourself for success. Now, he's talking about climbing the ladder in business. He says, and be diligent in this, that, and the other thing, an enormous edge awaits the person persistent enough to deepen himself or herself. Success deeply favors informed people. So I'm just applying that to the church. God tells us to study the Bible, all to study the same thing, and to be knowledgeable of His word. And He tells us to talk to each other all the time and really get to know each other deeply. And the success we're after is not climbing a ladder within our organization. It's climbing the ladder of virtues, you know, 1 Peter 2, 2 Peter 1, I mean, the ladder of virtues, and of God's character preparing for His kingdom. That's the real ladder.

And being informed about things in general, and most especially, the Word of God and the people of God, getting to know each other is just part of it. And He makes a statement that this is considered in business. This is the glue that holds a business together, and He says it's true with its society in general. So looking at Christ's example, you see Him talking with and bringing people out. One point that I also got from a book, actually, the way to say this, is find the handles, and that bears explanation. He's talking about, in talking with people, and I know a man who was really an expert at this, a couple or three sentences, he'll pick out something, he'll find something. This subject is interesting to this person. And so he'll start a conversation, and pretty soon drawing draws the person out. Pretty soon he's got, and fairly quickly, a new friend, and knows quite a bit about them, and he has begun a friendship to go forward on.

This idea of finding the handle is very interesting to me. Christ gave several examples, or I mean, I can give several examples of Christ doing this. They were walking on the road to Emmaus, and he said, well, you guys look kind of discouraged. Bummed out today. What's going on? Well, he knew what was going on. But, and of course, he had the advantage, because he knew hearts, and we can have that same help. And they said, oh, where have you been? Our Savior, we thought he was the Savior, and now he was killed. And they went on that whole section to build our faith is there in the Bible, because Christ, in this, in using this term, found the handle. Well, this man, Cleopas and his wife, we think, but they were sure interested, and they just poured forth their hearts. If you can do that, find the thing that really, really touches, or maybe even hurts, might be painful, or something that's really interesting. Start talking about that. You'll make a friend. You develop a relationship deeper within otherwise. So it's just an excellent tip. And Christ gave this example. He continually did this, the woman at the well. Yeah, I know. I know you're not married, and the guy you've had, six husbands, or whatever, and the guy you're living with isn't your husband. And he said, oh, this guy must be a prophet.

I mean, of course, he knew this, but that was the handle. And he went right to the center of it, and they were in deep conversation, and she went and got the rest of the story.

The topic of the resurrection, Paul used that also. When there were Pharisees and Sadducees, there, that was a good one. Sadducees denied it. And so, you know, he used that.

Oh, yes. Well, okay, I'll answer that. Just tell me if John the Baptist is a prophet.

And they said, wow, you're telling one thing we're going to do. You're telling the other thing we're going to do. He just knew how to write it right then. He just wanted to shut it down.

But he knew where to find the handle. This is kind of an ethereal thing. You know, go follow Christ's example and find the handles. That's a hard thing to do, because it has to do with getting God's spiritual help. But we need to do that. It's how to go about building deeper relationships. You need to follow a Christ's example. And if I hadn't really written and studied about this, I wouldn't have come up with that one. So he said, let your yea be yea and your nay be nay.

I'll leave that. This is a great sermonette topic, so I'll leave that for somebody.

Look that up and see what it means. And what does being really clear with yes or no, how does that build? How does that help relationships in the church? I have one example for this. This one guy was buying a car, and he was married, had a child, another one on the way, and he just had to have a car. And he found his sports car. And it was gorgeous. He said, well, there's enough room for a baby in the back seat. And he would fiddle around for an hour talking with the salesman. And finally the salesman said, okay, we've got to close this. So he tried to say, do you want this or not? And he said, oh boy, I have to sleep on this.

And the salesman said, look, I can take a yes, and I can take a no. But maybe it just kills me, would you please make a decision? And so I could have a good night's sleep or something like that.

And isn't that true with just about everybody? If you're put off, and if you're friends, let's say you have a friend, and they're ambivalent, doesn't that drive you crazy? Most people it does. Christ was really clear. I ran across a guy that wrote a book on this subject. So I had heard about this for several years. But he went to the extent of never using the passive voice. Something happened. Didn't happen. Instead of it just happened, somebody did it. And he always tried to use the active voice. And he said, it's not that hard. I never actually went to the full experiment. But you really can clarify if you, A, make a decision, and then use the active voice. Who did what when? And this is what we're going to do, and when we're going to do it, and how.

So that's very general, but it's perhaps worth the sermon at. The list goes on.

Christ respected those who were disrespected and vulnerable. Two cases. There was a woman who, they were a little bit different in two different situations, but they anointed him and washed his feet with tears. I guess the one anointing was Mary of Bethany, Martha's sister, anointed his head and then tearfully washed his feet. He said it was for preparation for the Passover. I'll be figuring that. And of course, Judas was the ringleader in that. And he said, man, we should have got what a waste. And did you notice his answer? His response wasn't, was it a waste or how much of a waste or was it worth it? He said, quit picking on the woman. You know, pick on somebody your own size. This is a good deed, so give her credit for what she's done.

He jumped in and several of his healings were for the same thing. He had compassion. He fed the multitude because he was compassionate. He loved everybody who has created us, and he jumps in to help somebody that needs help. Okay, now that... what kind of an example? How many times could you use that in decisions in your own life? Answer lots. So this is a sermon with kind of speaking of making a decision. I'm just saying, well, there are a hundred points out there, guys. Go hunt for it.

But what I would like you to do specifically is when you're studying the Gospels, look at Christ for his example. Not that he fed that many people, but why did he do it? Why did he do it? Not that he said that to the disciples, but why did he defend Mary? And how did he operate to set us an example? And I'll just have to say you'll have to hunt for it. I found one hint. I found more examples on more... yes, examples in business books. John Maxwell wrote quite a few business books.

And they were trying to follow Christ's example and apply it to business and make successful businesses. They've done a good job. So when you're studying, study from this point of view, I thought this might be certainly not new, but maybe a different way of looking at it, and start building your list. The overall principle here is to study and analyze how Jesus Christ kept his own law, how he kept the spirit of his law. And that'll bring you up to many, many insights. He did set us an example. Part of that was setting us an example of how to do his work, which is to a great degree how to talk to people under inspiration. It's one of the main gifts. And so with that, I'll leave it to you.