SPEAKER_00: Invite our welcome our North Place campuses and locations and our family all together right now.
SPEAKER_00: And to do that, I just want to I just want to celebrate you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to honor you for yesterday just be real honest.
SPEAKER_00: We met together Friday night with the rain looking like it was gonna wash out our serve day.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it just lined up 100% chance, like our entire window, and we were trying to make decisions as pastors and staff, like do we just try to reschedule this or what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: Um we said, you know what, we're probably gonna it's gonna hinder who can show up and what we can do, but let's just go forward with it and do as much as we can.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll because of that, I think our staff kind of came into that.
SPEAKER_00: We were a little bit let down, like we were so excited about all the places we're gonna serve, all the impact that we were gonna make.
SPEAKER_00: Um we were a little let down um because of of the weather.
SPEAKER_00: And then as you started coming into the room, um your your attitude, your excitement, it was infectious, and all of us as staff have talked about it since yesterday was over.
SPEAKER_00: About how you lifted our heads, you encouraged us, you you injected energy into us, and instead of walking away from the day disappointed, we were like, this is the best serve day we've ever had.
SPEAKER_00: Over 600 people showed up in spite of the rain across our campus families to serve.
SPEAKER_00: About 215 were first-time serve day people.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the first time that ever showed up and served at a serve day, that was incredible.
SPEAKER_00: We got to do a significant part of what we wanted to do.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we had to move some outside things off the list, but there were some others.
SPEAKER_00: We went to those teams that were going to different places and said, Look, let us move you into an inside project.
SPEAKER_00: They were like, No, this is why we came.
SPEAKER_00: We're here to serve, this is what we do.
SPEAKER_00: And they put the raincoats on, they looked a mess, but they got it done.
SPEAKER_00: They they were happy, they were smiling.
SPEAKER_00: Out at the ranch, I was watching people carry bedding and getting the dorms ready for our camps this summer for foster kids, and they're walking from building to building, they're drenched, it's raining, winds blowing, it's cold, they're smiling, cutting up, laughing.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody had such an incredible attitude.
SPEAKER_00: They were excited to be there, and when it was over, we were just like, I'm glad we did this, and I'm glad the heart of this congregation showed the way it did today.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: There were so many stories of divine appointments and prayers that were prayed with people because of serving, opening the door.
SPEAKER_00: Um, what a blessing! And you always amaze me with whether it's a generosity moment where you're blowing the lid off, or a day like yesterday where you're giving of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I want you to know that um your generosity in financial giving is one of the reasons we can do serve days, all the funds that we to serve all these places and purchase all the things and invest all that we do.
SPEAKER_00: Your giving is what makes things like that possible.
SPEAKER_00: And we just want to say thank you for that.
SPEAKER_00: The ways to give are on your screen today.
SPEAKER_00: If you brought a physical gift with you, you can place them in an envelope that are in seatbacks in front of you, and they're giving centers at the exits of the sanctuaries at every one of our locations.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I pray this sincerely with the pastor's heart today.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to bless these people.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to take notice of their heart, to love you, to represent you, to serve people, the way they give of themselves and their resources to advance your kingdom in the world.
SPEAKER_00: I ask you to see that.
SPEAKER_00: I ask you to take note of that.
SPEAKER_00: I ask you to bless what they set their hand to, their jobs, their careers, their needs.
SPEAKER_00: I pray you bless their relationships.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're here to talk about today.
SPEAKER_00: And use your word and your spirit and your divine favor.
SPEAKER_00: May it come upon their lives and may they see it pressed down, shaken together and running over, as your word says, in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And amen.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we launched a series we called Just Ask, and I invited you into what I called the question room because I wanted us to see the power and the possibility of questions.
SPEAKER_00: And if you'll remember, at the end of the message, I challenged you with some homework.
SPEAKER_00: I asked you to choose a relationship in your life and ask that person or question that you had never asked before, not a surface-level question, a real question, something that communicated to them that you genuinely want to know what's going on inside them.
SPEAKER_00: And for those of you that participated, thank you for taking that risk.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just share one powerful testimony of what happened when Tim did this with his son Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Unsolicited on Monday of last week, Tim sent us this email.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, pastors, I wanted to send you a quick note telling you how this new series is already impacting my family.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a remarried widower.
SPEAKER_00: My wife passed away five years ago when my sons were eight and ten.
SPEAKER_00: While we all walked together through intentional grief counseling, I knew as they got older they would probably think on her death in new and challenging ways.
SPEAKER_00: As I was sitting in the service yesterday, I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to initiate conversations with both of them, asking if they had any questions about their mom's life or death that they'd been afraid or embarrassed or unsure they could ask.
SPEAKER_00: So separately, I spoke with both of them.
SPEAKER_00: When I was speaking with my younger son, now 13, in the middle of those junior high and adolescent struggles, he simply had one question.
SPEAKER_00: What was her favorite thing about me?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I can convey the depth of what that question signified.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to know what his value was to his mom.
SPEAKER_00: He, like so many of us, wanted to know he was worth it.
SPEAKER_00: He cried, I cried.
SPEAKER_00: I told him about how his mom loved his laugh, that every time he laughed, his mom would laugh.
SPEAKER_00: And I wish I could articulate the look I saw in his face in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: It was a God moment.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful.
SPEAKER_00: I listened to the Holy Spirit, took the chance, and started the conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for responding to the Holy Spirit's leading to walk our church through this series.
SPEAKER_00: It's impacting my family already.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful God brought our family here to North Place, here to serve Tim.
SPEAKER_00: The only extraordinary thing Tim did was ask Judah a meaningful question.
SPEAKER_00: He created space, and a 13-year-old boy that had been carrying a silent ache in his heart for the last five years got to ask the thing that's been sitting on his heart since he was eight years old.
SPEAKER_00: What was her favorite thing about me?
SPEAKER_00: And Judah's profound question was possible because his dad asked first.
SPEAKER_00: And because his dad leaned in with holy curiosity, Judah got an answer that was healing to his and his dad's soul.
SPEAKER_00: That's the power of a question.
SPEAKER_00: One question.
SPEAKER_00: Ask with love at the right moment has the power to transform lives and relationships.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're here to learn more about today.
SPEAKER_00: Today we're gonna move from the question room to the question mark.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you change your questions, it's gonna change your life.
SPEAKER_00: It'll leave a mark, like literally on every area of your life.
SPEAKER_00: We established the foundation last week, but here's what I hope we grasp this week.
SPEAKER_00: The most influential people in any room, at home, at work, in ministry, are not the ones with the best answers.
SPEAKER_00: They are the ones who ask the questions that make everyone else feel seen, heard, and valued.
SPEAKER_00: Questions are the currency of relational depth and workplace influence.
SPEAKER_00: Today, I want us to see what holy curiosity looks like when it's actually practiced.
SPEAKER_00: And we're learning how to do that from the greatest teacher ever, God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible opens with God pursuing a restored relationship with fallen, broken humanity by asking a question.
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the one with all the answers, led with questions.
SPEAKER_00: He asked over 300 questions in the Gospels, and he was 40 times more likely to respond to a question with a question than respond with an answer.
SPEAKER_00: And if we want God to be our teacher in asking more and better questions, then we need to start by finding out what motivates God's question-asking.
SPEAKER_00: Because if the questions that we ask are born from the wrong motivation, they're gonna destroy instead of build up.
SPEAKER_00: The motivation behind every question that God asks is love.
SPEAKER_00: This whole conversation about question-asking is rooted in love.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a new communication strategy or a new leadership method.
SPEAKER_00: It's a conversation about love.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, Paul said, love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, it is not self-seeking.
SPEAKER_00: I showed you this last week, but we've got to keep proper motivation in the forefront of our minds.
SPEAKER_00: When Paul says love is not self-seeking, the Greek word for seeking here is zateo, which means to seek, to search, to pursue.
SPEAKER_00: Which means real love does not expend all its energy inward towards self.
SPEAKER_00: Biblical love zateos.
SPEAKER_00: It seeks, it pursues understanding, it searches out the other person.
SPEAKER_00: It is outward facing, which means real love can be expressed through a genuine, unhurried, curious question that communicates that you're more interested in the other person than you are yourself.
SPEAKER_00: That's Tim setting aside his own grief for a moment to lean toward his 13-year-old son Judah, asking a meaningful question that led to a transformative moment.
SPEAKER_00: That's what love looks like when it is zeteoing, it is pursuing, it is searching, it is being demonstrated in a home on a Sunday evening.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at how Jesus models this in Mark 10.
SPEAKER_00: It's a story most of us know.
SPEAKER_00: A blind beggar named Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, was sitting beside the road.
SPEAKER_00: When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby, he began to shout, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
SPEAKER_00: Be quiet.
SPEAKER_00: Many of the people yelled at him, but he only shouted louder, Son of David, have mercy on me.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus heard him, he stopped and said, Tell him to come here.
SPEAKER_00: So they called the blind man.
SPEAKER_00: Cheer up, they said.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, he's calling for you.
SPEAKER_00: Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what Jesus led with.
SPEAKER_00: A question.
SPEAKER_00: What do you want me to do for you?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus asked.
SPEAKER_00: Every time we read this or we preach on it, the focus is usually on the miracle that happens after the question.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus heals Bartimaeus.
SPEAKER_00: But I want us to focus on the nature of the question that led to the miracle because so much more is happening here than the healing of a blind man.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus hears Bartimaeus screaming his name.
SPEAKER_00: And the whole crowd knows what he wants.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knows what the man wants, but he stops and asks the question anyway, because he's not doing a healing.
SPEAKER_00: He's doing a relationship.
SPEAKER_00: The question is not for information, the question is an act of honor because he values the man.
SPEAKER_00: The best leaders and parents and spouses and friends do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: They don't presume to know what somebody needs.
SPEAKER_00: They ask.
SPEAKER_00: They don't let their assumptions drive the relationship or set the tone of the environment.
SPEAKER_00: They ask.
SPEAKER_00: And in asking, they're communicating that the other person's voice and needs and perspectives matter.
SPEAKER_00: This is the posture of Jesus toward every person he encounters.
SPEAKER_00: And before we move on, I gotta point out something that's easy to overlook in this story.
SPEAKER_00: Something that made it possible for Jesus to have encounters with people this way.
SPEAKER_00: In Mark 10, verse 49, it says, When Jesus heard him, he stopped.
SPEAKER_00: In a culture that never slows down, in contrast to a world that rewards efficiency and speed and productivity, Jesus stopped.
SPEAKER_00: The crowd kept moving, the demands of his life were still there, the destination was still waiting, but Jesus stopped.
SPEAKER_00: You can't ask meaningful questions while you're racing by somebody.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta stop first.
SPEAKER_00: Holy curiosity requires a certain kind of holy deceleration.
SPEAKER_00: And that may be the most countercultural thing we ask of you in this series.
SPEAKER_00: Slow down enough to actually stop for the person in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be half scrolling and half listening.
SPEAKER_00: Don't have your mind already on the next thing you're committed to.
SPEAKER_00: Stop, ask, listen.
SPEAKER_00: I think between last week and the first part of this week, we pretty much settled the issue.
SPEAKER_00: Questions matter.
SPEAKER_00: They really are acts of love.
SPEAKER_00: They really are the posture and practice of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But how do we actually get better at them?
SPEAKER_00: Last week I mentioned a book that has been the most helpful for me in this area, The Art of Asking Better Questions by J.R.
SPEAKER_00: Briggs.
SPEAKER_00: In the book, Briggs gives a simple and practical framework for thinking about our questions.
SPEAKER_00: And once you see this, you won't hear or participate in conversations the same way.
SPEAKER_00: He has four levels of questions.
SPEAKER_00: Level one is informational.
SPEAKER_00: Questions like, How are you?
SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
SPEAKER_00: Did you catch the game?
SPEAKER_00: These kind of questions collect data.
SPEAKER_00: They open a door, but they rarely invite anybody to walk through it.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us live here.
SPEAKER_00: This is where most conversation happens, and most of our conversations die here.
SPEAKER_00: Level two, reflective questions.
SPEAKER_00: These are questions like, what was the best part of your week?
SPEAKER_00: What are you most looking forward to right now?
SPEAKER_00: These questions invite somebody beyond the surface because they create a different kind of conversation.
SPEAKER_00: The answer to those questions require real answers, not just reflexes.
SPEAKER_00: Level three questions are interpretive, like, what did that experience teach you about yourself?
SPEAKER_00: What are you noticing in this season of your life?
SPEAKER_00: These questions invite meaning making.
SPEAKER_00: They don't just ask what happened, they ask what it meant.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the level where real connection starts to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Level four, transformative questions.
SPEAKER_00: What would need to be true for you to take the next step?
SPEAKER_00: What is the question you're most afraid to ask yourself?
SPEAKER_00: What does your heart actually want underneath all the noise?
SPEAKER_00: These are the kinds of questions that change things.
SPEAKER_00: And they're the ones that Jesus kept asking.
SPEAKER_00: Tim's son asked a level four question.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't know that's what it was.
SPEAKER_00: He just asked the thing that his heart most needed to know.
SPEAKER_00: What was her favorite thing about me?
SPEAKER_00: And that question went straight to the bedrock of identity, belonging, and love.
SPEAKER_00: Most of our conversations stay at level one because level one is safe.
SPEAKER_00: It costs nothing, it risks nothing, it reveals nothing, and it changes nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus rarely used level one questions, but when he did, he didn't stay there.
SPEAKER_00: Most of his questions were level three, level four questions, the kind that draw people toward the truth they already carry inside them, but they've never been invited to name it.
SPEAKER_00: Look at this now famous conversation between Jesus and Simon Peter, the same Simon Peter who had denied him.
SPEAKER_00: This is after the three denials, after the resurrection, Jesus is talking to him in John 21.
SPEAKER_00: After breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord, Peter replied, You know I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Then feed my lambs, Jesus told him.
SPEAKER_00: In that passage, he would go on to ask Peter two more times, Do you really love me?
SPEAKER_00: That's not a level one question.
SPEAKER_00: He's not just checking facts.
SPEAKER_00: This is a surgical level four question.
SPEAKER_00: Ask of a man that had just denied him three times.
SPEAKER_00: And he asked three times because Jesus is pressing on the exact wound that needed to be healed before Peter could move forward.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not trying to embarrass him, he's trying to draw something out of him so that he might restore him.
SPEAKER_00: The right question at the right depth, at the right moment, doesn't just gather information, it heals.
SPEAKER_00: And don't miss the imagery, Jesus was drawing something out of him.
SPEAKER_00: I want to show you something that gives some biblical Hebrew imagery to this question-asking thing that is powerful, and I pray that it sticks with you and helps you to grasp it.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the wisdom of Proverbs in Proverbs 20, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: The purposes of a person's heart are like deep water, but one who has insight draws them out.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the most beautiful verses in all the wisdom literature.
SPEAKER_00: And the imagery is that of a bucket being lowered into the deep waters of an ancient well.
SPEAKER_00: The purposes of a person's heart are like deep water.
SPEAKER_00: Think about what that means.
SPEAKER_00: The person sitting across from you at dinner, your spouse, your child, your coworker, a friend, they are carrying more than what your naturalized can see.
SPEAKER_00: There are things deep, deep down inside their hearts, deep water, dreams they have not spoken out loud, fears they have not named, wounds they have not shown, hopes they have not dared to voice, questions of their own that have never found a safe place to be asked.
SPEAKER_00: It's all in there, in the deep waters of the well, inside their heart.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says the person with insight, a person who is wise, who genuinely cares, draws that stuff out.
SPEAKER_00: That's the image.
SPEAKER_00: You're lowering a bucket into the well.
SPEAKER_00: You go down into what is deep.
SPEAKER_00: You're not skimming the surface.
SPEAKER_00: You've come prepared to bring something up from the depths.
SPEAKER_00: And the question is the bucket.
SPEAKER_00: Not a generic question, not a reflex question, a thoughtful, intentional, unhurried question that says, I believe there's more knowing in you, more worth knowing in you, and I'm willing to take the time to find it out.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Proverbs 20, verse 5 kind of person.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the kind of person this series is calling you to become.
SPEAKER_00: The purposes of a person's heart are like deep water.
SPEAKER_00: But one who has insight draws them out.
SPEAKER_00: When Daryl Davis was 10 years old, he was walking with his Cub Scout pack in a parade in the suburbs of Boston.
SPEAKER_00: It was 1968, and Daryl was the only black member of his pack.
SPEAKER_00: As they marched, people in the crowd started throwing bottles and rocks at Daryl.
SPEAKER_00: His den mothers and pack leaders and other Cub Scouts got around him, quickly rushed him to safety.
SPEAKER_00: Daryl's 10-year-old mind could not comprehend what had just happened.
SPEAKER_00: And when his parents explained to him that it was because the color of his skin, he couldn't process it.
SPEAKER_00: Because he had grown up traveling the world with his diplomat father, going to schools in other countries alongside children from every nation on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And so racism was incomprehensible to him.
SPEAKER_00: But as a 10-year-old boy, grieving this new reality he has been faced with, he asked a question of his parents that day that completely reshaped the direction of his life.
SPEAKER_00: He said to his parents, How can they hate me when they don't even know me?
SPEAKER_00: Daryl would go on to become a gifted jazz and blues musician, and in 1983 he was playing a gig at a bar in Fredericburg, Maryland.
SPEAKER_00: A white man came up to him after the first set, put his arm around Daryl, and told Daryl it was the first time he'd ever heard a black man play like Jerry Lee Lewis.
SPEAKER_00: And Daryl laughed and he said, Jerry Lee Lewis learned to play that way because he grew up in a Pentecostal church and he learned from black guys that played blues.
SPEAKER_00: That mutual interest in music started a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow, I guess it disarmed the white guy.
SPEAKER_00: He confessed to Daryl that he was a member of the Klu Klux Klan.
SPEAKER_00: Most people in Daryl Davis's situation would have ended the conversation there.
SPEAKER_00: But Daryl didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Because he had been waiting his whole life since he was a 10-year-old boy to ask a racist that question he asked his parents that day.
SPEAKER_00: How can you hate me when you don't even know me?
SPEAKER_00: And because of what happened in that one encounter, set Daryl's life on a mission.
SPEAKER_00: He started seeking out KKK members, not to argue, not to protest, to ask deep questions.
SPEAKER_00: And he set across from Klansmen.
SPEAKER_00: He listened to them, he asked questions.
SPEAKER_00: Curious about them, genuinely, deliberately, uncomfortably curious.
SPEAKER_00: And something extraordinary started happening.
SPEAKER_00: Over the following four decades, more than 200 members of the Ku Klux Klan renounced their ideology and left the organization, citing their friendship with Daryl Davis as the reason.
SPEAKER_00: And remarkably, those men surrendered their clan robes and their hoods to him.
SPEAKER_00: He literally has a closet full of KK hoods and robes.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't try to debate them into submission.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't shame them.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't try to win arguments.
SPEAKER_00: He asked questions.
SPEAKER_00: He stayed curious.
SPEAKER_00: He treated them as people worth knowing, even when they didn't return the favor.
SPEAKER_00: And the dignity he showed them of being genuinely known, genuinely listened to, genuinely asked, slowly dismantled their hatred.
SPEAKER_00: Daryl Davis's question didn't just change conversations, it changed lives and disrupted a movement.
SPEAKER_00: And it all started with one honest question born in the heart of a 10-year-old boy who simply could not understand hatred.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, this week you won't be sitting across from a Klansman, but I promise you, you will be sitting across from somebody who has rarely, if ever, been genuinely asked a level four question.
SPEAKER_00: A spouse who's learned to keep things surface level because it's just safe.
SPEAKER_00: A teenager who stopped believing you actually really want to know.
SPEAKER_00: A coworker who's decided their real thoughts are not welcome in the room.
SPEAKER_00: A friend who's drowning in silence because nobody has taken the time to lower the bucket into their deep water.
SPEAKER_00: Think about the impact of this if practice in your home.
SPEAKER_00: One of the most countercultural things a family can do in this age of screens is seeking meaningful time to get around the table at dinner or some other time and ask questions.
SPEAKER_00: Studies show families who have regular, engaged dinner time conversations produce children with stronger vocabularies, better academic outcomes, and more resilient social skills.
SPEAKER_00: So as a family, consider asking more and better questions, less level one questions, more level three or four questions.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of how was your day, ask what was the hardest part of your day and how did you handle it.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of how school, ask who do you think could use a friend at school right now?
SPEAKER_00: None of these take expertise.
SPEAKER_00: They just require a little more effort and a posture of genuine curiosity about another human being.
SPEAKER_00: Think about the impact of this practice in your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage researcher Dr.
SPEAKER_00: John Gottman found that couples who remain deeply connected over decades share one characteristic above all others.
SPEAKER_00: They continue to update their love maps.
SPEAKER_00: What is your love map?
SPEAKER_00: Your love map is your internal knowledge of your partner's inner world.
SPEAKER_00: How do you update a love map?
SPEAKER_00: You ask questions.
SPEAKER_00: You remain curious of a person even if after you've known them 20 or 30 or 40 years.
SPEAKER_00: But too many couples stop asking because they think they already know.
SPEAKER_00: They make the mistake, they think they're still married to the person they said I do to 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: And you are not the same person, and neither are they.
SPEAKER_00: People change, dreams shift, wounds heal, and new ones form, fears evolve.
SPEAKER_00: The spouse sitting across from you today is not identical to the one that you married.
SPEAKER_00: So are you still asking?
SPEAKER_00: Are you still curious?
SPEAKER_00: Practical questions you can try?
SPEAKER_00: What's something you've been wanting to say to me that you haven't said yet?
SPEAKER_00: What's something you need from me that I haven't been offering?
SPEAKER_00: What's your greatest hope for this season of our life together?
SPEAKER_00: Think about the impact of this of practice in your friendships.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us have hundreds of acquaintances and very few real friends, people who know who we actually are.
SPEAKER_00: The gap between acquaintances and real friendship is almost always bridged by the questions that risk vulnerability.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's got to go first.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's got to ask a real question and make room for a real answer.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the way Jesus handled this.
SPEAKER_00: John 15, verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: I no longer call you servants.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I call you friends.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what was the difference between his servant-like acquaintances and real friends.
SPEAKER_00: For everything that I learned from my father, I have made known to you.
SPEAKER_00: Friendship with Jesus begins with disclosure, vulnerability, trust, and honesty.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus makes things known to us.
SPEAKER_00: That was his mark of friendship.
SPEAKER_00: And every genuine friendship follows the same pattern.
SPEAKER_00: We make ourselves known.
SPEAKER_00: And questions create the conditions for that to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Think about this, the impact of this practice in your workplace.
SPEAKER_00: We said this earlier.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 18, verse 13, to answer before listening.
SPEAKER_00: That is folly and shame.
SPEAKER_00: The wisdom literature in Scripture is relentless about this.
SPEAKER_00: The person who answers before they have truly heard has already failed.
SPEAKER_00: The wise person listens first, understands first, asks first, and then speaks.
SPEAKER_00: Research from Harvard Business School revealed that managers who ask more questions of their employees have significantly higher performance, lower turnover, and greater innovation output.
SPEAKER_00: Not because asking questions is a management technique, but because a question communicates something no memo or performance review or motivational speech ever can.
SPEAKER_00: It says, I believe you have something worth knowing, and I want to hear it.
SPEAKER_00: That kind of dignity changes how people work.
SPEAKER_00: It changes how people feel about their work, and it changes how people feel about the person asking the question.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus led with questions, and we would be wise to learn from the greatest leader who ever lived.
SPEAKER_00: To kind of land this and bring it home in our hearts today, I want to tell you how a sack lunch and a list of questions changed my relationship with my children.
SPEAKER_00: My oldest son is getting close to 30.
SPEAKER_00: And when he was a teenager, we started hosting events at Lonesome Dove Ranch called Pure Adventure.
SPEAKER_00: Pure Adventure was created as a day with dads to spend with their teenage sons.
SPEAKER_00: It's turning the hearts of fathers back to their children, like the book of Malachi.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a dad involved in my life, so this was important to me to host, but I participated in the first one we ever hosted with my oldest son.
SPEAKER_00: I would go on to participate with each of my three kids at different events.
SPEAKER_00: It was made for boys.
SPEAKER_00: My daughter came along when she turned 13 or 14, said it's not fair.
SPEAKER_00: The boys got to go to Pure Adventure.
SPEAKER_00: They ought to have one for girls.
SPEAKER_00: And so they created one for girls, and that was the first one ever.
SPEAKER_00: Now they do them for girls.
SPEAKER_00: So I went through Pure Adventure days with dad, with all three of my kids.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a moment on a pure adventure day at lunch where they give every dad and their son or daughter a sack lunch, and they give 50 questions to your son or daughter, 50 questions to you, and you're supposed to go off for an hour, eat your sack lunch, and ask each other the questions.
SPEAKER_00: The first time I did this, I'm thinking to myself, this is not gonna go well.
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be one long, awkward hour.
SPEAKER_00: But I was shocked.
SPEAKER_00: I picked out a question and an ask, and the depth of response was not what I was expected, and it led to a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Then it's their turn.
SPEAKER_00: These are thought-through questions, things that teenagers want to talk to their dad about, but they don't even know how to frame it, and so they put them in the form of questions, and they're supposed to pick out the one that they want to ask.
SPEAKER_00: And so they'd ask, I'd ask, and what shocked me with every one of my kids, we never got through more than three or four questions on that 50-question list because the conversation was so deep, and the hour got past before we ever knew it.
SPEAKER_00: It shifted the way I parented my children and the depth of our relationship and all three of them, so much so that I was working on this sermon earlier in the week, and my 26-year-old son, middle son,'s about to get married, walks in, and I start telling him what I'm talking about and Pure Adventure, and he said, Dad, I remember that.
SPEAKER_00: We've never talked about it before, but I felt that shift in our relationship that day over sack lunch and 50 questions.
SPEAKER_00: Questions change things.
SPEAKER_00: So I called Bo Glenn, who is the founder of Pure Adventure, and I'm like, Bo, hey, we're talking about questions at church.
SPEAKER_00: Why, why, what was it about?
SPEAKER_00: How did you know?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what was it about questions that made you frame the entire Pure Adventure experience around questions?
SPEAKER_00: And then you send me one every, like if you go to Pure Adventure and you give them your email, they'll send you one of the questions off of that list every Sunday at 1230 for you to keep having meaningful conversations with your kids.
SPEAKER_00: And I get that email every Sunday, have over a decade now, um, at 1230.
SPEAKER_00: Every Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: And I asked Bo about that.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, here's the reason, Brian.
SPEAKER_00: My dad left when I was 18 months old.
SPEAKER_00: I never saw him.
SPEAKER_00: 35 years, he was not in my life.
SPEAKER_00: In my mid-30s, I was working with my pastor.
SPEAKER_00: I'm dealing with father wounds.
SPEAKER_00: It's affecting my marriage, my kids, the way I parent them.
SPEAKER_00: And my pastor said, Daryl, you really need to go find your dad.
SPEAKER_00: You need to meet him, you need to close this loop.
SPEAKER_00: And if you ever do, you need to ask him questions.
SPEAKER_00: You have the right to ask him anything you want to.
SPEAKER_00: He said, So I found my dad.
SPEAKER_00: We met together at Chili's.
SPEAKER_00: We started talking about surface level stuff, sports and weather.
SPEAKER_00: And then I said, Dad, can I ask you some real questions?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Yes, gave me permission.
SPEAKER_00: And I asked him, Why did you leave?
SPEAKER_00: Why did you never call?
SPEAKER_00: Have you never wanted to meet my wife or get to know your grandkids?
SPEAKER_00: And the questions went on.
SPEAKER_00: And he said he handled them fairly well for a recovering alcoholic.
SPEAKER_00: But he said, those questions in that moment started something that has continued for the last three decades.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Today my dad is 93 years old.
SPEAKER_00: He's an assisted living, but we talk one to three times a day.
SPEAKER_00: We're still asking questions of each other, and our relationship is still growing.
SPEAKER_00: It changed our life together, asking the right question.
SPEAKER_00: He said, The reason you get the email at 12:30 every Sunday is because when Andrew, my son, was young, he had three older sisters, and he felt like he was getting overlooked.
SPEAKER_00: So I said, Andrew, I'm gonna make a date with you every Sunday at 12:30.
SPEAKER_00: You and Dad are gonna go eat tacos together.
SPEAKER_00: He said, We did that for years.
SPEAKER_00: But when Andrew became a teenager, the lunchtime became less conversational.
SPEAKER_00: He was more closed off, he wouldn't open up, it was more difficult.
SPEAKER_00: So I went to a friend of mine and I said, Dave, it's not working like it used to.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Bo, ask better questions.
SPEAKER_00: And on a napkin, he wrote three or four questions I could ask Andrew the next week.
SPEAKER_00: And Bo said, Brian, it was magic.
SPEAKER_00: It changed the game.
SPEAKER_00: And I kept going back to Dave for more questions, and it kept deepening my relationship with Andrew.
SPEAKER_00: And those 50 questions that your sons got, and those 50 questions you got, Dave put all of those together.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason they emailed at 1230 every Sunday is because that's what it was changed for me and Andrew, 12:30 every Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Questions change people's lives.
SPEAKER_00: From God asking a sinful man hiding in the garden, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: to Jesus stopping on a crowded road for one blind man, or Jesus returning to the upper room for a doubting disciple, or Jesus asking Peter three times, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: The God of Scripture is a pursuing God.
SPEAKER_00: And the questions that he models are not interrogations, they are invitations.
SPEAKER_00: Every time God asks a question, he's creating space for somebody to be found and known and loved.
SPEAKER_00: And what he models for us, he invites us to practice with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Every person in your life, your spouse, your child, your parent, your friend, your coworker, the person in the next cubicle, the people that have been sitting beside you in the same row at church for months and you still don't know their story.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of them is carrying deep water.
SPEAKER_00: And they're waiting on somebody to lower the bucket.
SPEAKER_00: Be that person.
SPEAKER_00: Ask the meaningful question.
SPEAKER_00: Not because you got a new communication strategy, but because you've been loved by a God who's never stopped asking you.
SPEAKER_00: He's never stopped pursuing you.
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: And you want the people around you to know what that feels like.
SPEAKER_00: Let us help you.
SPEAKER_00: Some people on our team put together some resources for you.
SPEAKER_00: There'll be a QR code on your screen in just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: One of those QR codes, the one QR code is to a landing page on a website for a list of questions.
SPEAKER_00: Like literally, there are questions that you can ask yourself based on every decade of your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy how your questions need to change when you're in your 20s as opposed to when you're in your 60s.
SPEAKER_00: And there are decades of life questions there.
SPEAKER_00: There are questions there that you can ask in your marriage, you can ask of parents in different seasons and phases of life.
SPEAKER_00: Want to resource you with level three, level four questions.
SPEAKER_00: The other is if you want to get that 1230 email I get every Sunday, Bo gave us permission to make that available.
SPEAKER_00: You can register with Pure Adventure to get that email sent to you.
SPEAKER_00: I will say, they were generally created for dads with their sons.
SPEAKER_00: They've been adapted over the years and could be used with dads and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: And mom, you could probably use them as well in your conversations.
SPEAKER_00: They may need a little more adaptation, but you'll get it every time you sign up for that, you'll get it one question every Sunday, 1230.
SPEAKER_00: I'll get one today.
SPEAKER_00: Meaningful questions change people's lives.
SPEAKER_00: Lower the bucket, they change relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Would you stand with me today across this room and across our campus family?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ask if our prayer team at every campus would come and prepare to serve you today.
SPEAKER_00: Can I challenge you as they come?
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't do what Tim did last week, do it this week.
SPEAKER_00: Big challenge.
SPEAKER_00: One relationship in your life, ask a question you've never asked.
SPEAKER_00: A meaningful question.
SPEAKER_00: Take the risk, see what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, at work, three things prepare, engage, and reflect.
SPEAKER_00: Before that meeting this week, you always go into at work.
SPEAKER_00: Don't just show up.
SPEAKER_00: Frustrated.
SPEAKER_00: Prepare.
SPEAKER_00: Think about what questions you might ask.
SPEAKER_00: You may or may not ask them, but think about it.
SPEAKER_00: How can you be prepared?
SPEAKER_00: Engage by listening and understanding first.
SPEAKER_00: If one of the questions you thought about beforehand is gonna add value, ask it.
SPEAKER_00: And then when the meeting's over, reflect.
SPEAKER_00: Did I talk too much?
SPEAKER_00: Did I listen enough?
SPEAKER_00: If I would have been better at this, what questions might I have asked that would have added more value?
SPEAKER_00: Because when you do that, you're gonna be better the next time you show up at a meeting.
SPEAKER_00: Prepare before the meeting, engage during the meeting, reflect after the meeting.
SPEAKER_00: Give honor, add value wherever you go at work.
SPEAKER_00: Next week, we're gonna get into the most important part of this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: We're going deeper because we're gonna look at how questions we ask ourselves and the questions we bring to God will create deeper intimacy in our relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_00: It will enrich our faith and transform us.
SPEAKER_00: This is where I've been trying to get to the whole time.
SPEAKER_00: It's how our questions impact our faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's next Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Really encourage you to be a part of that.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever your need is, today we're here to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever's going on in your life, we're ready to pray with you.
SPEAKER_00: But can I tell you the most important question you'll ever ask in your life is, Jesus, will you be my Lord and Savior?
SPEAKER_00: If you've never asked that question, I promise you here's the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he does.
SPEAKER_00: But he has to be invited in.
SPEAKER_00: He's knocking, but he's got to be invited in.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've never asked him that question, the answer is already yes.
SPEAKER_00: You just gotta open the door of your heart, and there is no greater joy for us in our prayer team to pray with anybody about anything than settling that issue in your life, letting Jesus be your Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_00: So, Father, will you bless them and keep them today?
SPEAKER_00: Will you make your face shine down upon them today?
SPEAKER_00: Will you be gracious to them?
SPEAKER_00: Turn your countenance their direction.
SPEAKER_00: And would you give us a new sense of peace and a new level of holy curiosity in Jesus' name?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: These altars are open.
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.