Who is in the Room?

Proverbs 12:26 NIV

The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.

Introduction

Today we are going to be talking about situational relationships.

A situational relationship is a relationship that begins as an acquaintance, and may or may not enter into the friend zone. I don’t meant that in the romantic way of friend zoning someone, but I mean that in the friendship way.

There is another mom at your son’s school that you talk to.

It another Dad on your son’s football team.

It’s another soccer or softball mom.

It can also be your coworker, your boss, or your employee.

It is people who have been brought into your life becuase of a work, school, sports or other situation. That’s a situational relationship.

And because we all have these situational relationships, I want to talk to you about how we navigate some of these into our circle of friends.

But before I do, I want you to think about one situational relationship that became a friendship in your life. Just one for now.

I know some of you are popular and you are loving this… and others of you are part of the anti social social club and this is deeply painful, but you have one.

OK, got that person in your head?

What is the one thing that pulled that person from situational relationship into friendship? It could be an event, humor, one similar interest, kids, etc.

How many for you was it an event. There was an event that you could pin as the catalyst for bringing you closer together? How many can you say it your kids who got close, so you got closer to them? Raise your hand if it was similar interest?

OK, so let’s dive into this because I do believe that we have some advice from the Bible, and we have some examples in the scripture when it comes to moving our relationships from situational to friendships, and how we can do that wisely.

Someone say wisely.

Assess the Situation

When new people enter our lives, we need to assess the situation.

Somebody tell your neighbor, you need to assess the situation.

I don’t mean for this to sound cold or callous, but when we approach relationships, or when relationships approach us, we need to do these two things:

Matthew 10:16 NIV

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

That was Jesus talking about sending out his disciples on mission. We too, are missionaries where we work, we are missionaries at our school, we are missionaries in our clubs, etc. So there is an application that we can make here, If that we too must be wise and gentle.

We must be wise, and we must be gentle.

So when someone new is entering your life, you need to assess the situation using gentleness, but also using wisdom.

Wisdom is needed to show us if this is a person we should bring close, or if we keep them at an arm’s length. Wisdom is needed to show us how far we will let this relationship go.

So let me give you a few ways that you can do this.

First, we do this by discernment.

Discernment is the ability to judge well.

There is nothing wrong with judging a person who is coming into your life, based on the situation that you are walking in to. I’m not saying that you are judging their salvation. That’s not your place. What I am talking about is judging just how much of yourself you are going to give to this person.

There is someone now in your life, and every relationship has give and take. You need to discern the type of person you are working with and use wisdom with how much you are going to let this person take from you.

Here is what I know about discernment.

Discernment is a spiritual gift and some of us have the gift of discernment.

Discernment is not a spiritual gift that God gives to everyone. Some of you have NO DISCERNMENT. It’s not a knock on you, but you may just have very low or poor discernment.

If you aren’t sure if you have the gift of discernment it means two things, 1. you haven’t taken Growth Track, and 2. you haven’t taken the time to find out.

If you KNOW that you are terrible at discerning people, find you some friends with the gift of discernment, give them the rundown and let them speak back to you. I am not calling you out, but I am asking you to be aware, and once again, use wisdom.

What do we do with discernment? Let’s talk about that.

Assessing the situation should include figuring out the hierarchy.

Someone say hierarchy.

Some of this is done for you in some of your acquaintanceships - your new boss, your new director, your new employee, etc. These are acquiantanceships that come with a built in hierarchy.

You talk to your boss differently, don’t you? Your conversation with your co-worker about how bad leadership is at the company is probably not the conversation you are having with your boss. There is a hierarchy to this relationship that doesn’t require a whole lot of discernment becuase it’s been stated for you.

But sometimes, in other relationships, you are wise to figure out who they are, what they do, and who they are related to, so that you know who you are talking to!

Have you ever talked to someone and said the things you shouldn’t have said? That typically happens when you haven’t figured out that person yet.

I heard this great quote so I’m going to give it to you here: “Be authentic with everyone, but transparent with people we trust.”

That’s one of those quotes we could go ahead and make an altar call on...

There are hierarchy’s in every relationship, and I am not talking about one person being better than the other, but situationally knowing the room.

Also, situationally knowing who should lead. So for example, in some rooms that I walk into my ability to lead well doesn’t matter when we are talking about building permits or biology. I’m going to surrender my leadership to the person who has more experience and education in this arena. Because in this hierarchy, my leadership ability means very little.

The same is true with acquiantanceships, you assess the situation and figure out hierarchy’s so that there is great chemistry moving forward.

Here’s the last thing that I want to say about assessing the situation, make a decision how much investment you are going to give to this person. What will my investment be? We all do this on some level, even if it is subconscious. I think it is better when it is done with intention.

Today we are talking acquiantanceships and next week we go into friendships, but another quote I heard was this, “Do for some what you wish you could do for all.”

I think Pastor Josh is 2 for 2 with bringing in the good quotes this Sunday.

Family and friends get a different kind of investment. So, while I have the capacity to love and to give at a high level, it is impossible for me to do this for everyone. So I have got to choose who will get what kind of investment. What relationship will I allow to pull out of me what God has deposited within me.

TRANSITION

Now, as I said, I see this in the scriptures, and that’s going to give us some application on how we can assess, discern, and invest into other people.

Is there a Purpose to this Person?

I’m going to speak at a high level from the life of Joseph. For those of you who do not know Joseph, let me give you the brief rundown, and then we’ll dive in.

He is one of twelve brothers, who was despised by his brothers and sold into slavery. While in slavery Joseph is falsely accused of attempting to rape his bosses wife, so he lands in prison. While in prison, he begins to interpret dreams supernaturally, by the gift of God. When the Pharoah of Egypt had a dream that no one could interpret, they called up Joseph from prison. He correctly interpreted Pharaohs dream and is promoted to the right hand of Pharoah.

What a life!

Let’s close out this discussion in the scriptures and applying what I’ve talked about to a story in the text.

Genesis 37 - Joseph is sold by his brothers into slavery, who then sell him off and he winds up in the house of Potiphar. In the hierarchy of relationships, he has a boss. But there’s another acquaintance in this story, isn’t there? Potiphar is married and his wife was apparently not too fulfilled with Potiphar. So she made advancements on Joseph. But we read in the text that Joseph applied wisdom and put a wall up between her and him. He knew that this situational relationship was trying to pull more out of him than he should give to her.

We can apply this to our acquaintances as well. Are we doing life with someone who would want to pull more out of you than you could or should give them? Are they asking of you something that would completely go against your value system? If so, how are you responding?

Now, we know what happens next. His bosses wife tries to sleep with him by grabbing him by the coat. In that moment, Joseph had to make a decision. Am I going to be a dove or am I going to be a serpent?

Jospeh made the right decision and he slid on out of that room, and let her have the coat.

This seemingly left him in a very vulnerable position, becuase it lands him in jail.

But have you ever thought that without the jail he would have never met the baker and the cup bearer? Can I just call the cup bearer the butler from now on? Because it just sounds cooler and it reminds me of Jeffrey from the Fresh Prince.

So who are the baker and the butler?

Well they both worked for Pharoah. Pharoah is his old bosses boss. He might have even been his bosses bosses boss. Whatever the hierarchy was, he was at the top of the food chain. And now, the butler and the baker got themselves into some mess and they find themselves in jail right next to Joseph. So Joseph has some new relationships.

They have these dreams, and Joseph decides that what he wasn’t going to let Potiphar’s wife pull out of him, he lets these guys pull out of him.

Different acquaintances, different investment.

Joseph interprets their dreams. They both come to fruition, exactly the way Joseph said that they would. This meant the baker was executed for whatever crime he committed and the butler was vindicated. So Joseph told Jeffrey, “don’t forget about your boy!”

Now Joseph thought that becuase his interpretation was accurate it would open up doors for him, but nothing happened for him. Nothing changed. He was in the same prison, or the same situation, until one day.

Someone say one day.

One day, the Pharoah starts having crazy dreams and no one could interpret the dream. Then the butler remembered!

There was a guy that I met in prison who was willing to invest into me by interpreting my dream. Perhaps he could do the same for you!

So how does the story for Joseph end?

He interprets Pharaohs dream. Pharoah promotes him. Now, he’s the boss to a whole lot of people, including Potiphar.

In my imagination I always wonder how Mrs. Potiphar must have felt when she found out Joseph got elevated. She probably lived her life in a whole lot of fear becuase she misjudged the room.

We get no word from Mrs. Potiphar, but I can only imagine how that must have felt like for her.

As for Joseph, his elevation had a lot to do with how he treated those around him who were not his family, and they were not his friends. They were situational relationships.

There was wisdom that Joseph in how he handled each relationship, and how it worked out for him in the end.

Conclusion

God will bring situational relationships into your life and how you treat them says a lot about you, and your journey as a disciple of Jesus.

You cannot be all things to all people, we know that, but I want you to start becoming more aware of who God is bringing into your life. I want you to be available to what God would want you to do with these relationships. I want you to start stewarding these relationships faithfully.

I want you to remember that before Jesus says to be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove, he tells them, “I am sending you out.”

In the same way Lighthouse, at the end of this service, I am sending you out.

Some churches use this language, on Sunday we gather, but when the service is over, we scatter.

Back to our mission fields. Back to our place in this world that God has called us to faithfully manage and to serve. We are missionaries to our work, missionaries to our school, missionaries to our communities.

You need to assess every relationship and look for the opportunity to be salt and light. To bring care and affect change.