Sunday, June 29, 2008

What Are Safe People?

Good morning and welcome to lesson 12 of our study of ‘Safe People”. Today we actually begin the last section of the book, which begins in Chapter 9, where we look at how to be safe; who and what are safe people and where to find them. Then when we come to the end of the study we will finally address the question, “Should I keep certain relationships?” If you’ve managed to keep up with the reading, you have probably already started identify unsafe traits in people around you, and have begun to become a safer person. Today we are going to address the subject of what a safe person is.

Let’s see what we can come up with as an answer to the question, “What is a safe person?” (Open the floor)

At the beginning of Chapter 9 the authors lay out a list of three things that a safe relationship does. These are:

· Draws us closer to God.
· Draws us closer to others.
· Helps us to become the person that God created us to be.

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this, and I couldn’t really add to the list. I thought about things a safe relationship might do, such as “provide a loving environment”, but they all seemed to be able to fit into one of the three they had already listed. So, we’ll go with it. Let’s take a look at what these three things mean.

Draws us closer to God

We start here by looking at a familiar verse; one we have used a couple of times in this study. A Pharisee came to Jesus and asked him a question, it is found in Mt 22:36-39:

Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. (NASU)

What things does this say to us in the context of drawing closer to God? (Open class for input)

· It is a statement of our ultimate objective in life!
· It speaks to unconditional, sacrificial and obedient love.
· It says that our love must come from the inside out.
· It says it is our choice, it is under our control.

Anything, anyone or any relationship that holds us back from moving toward loving God with all our Soul, is not safe! This doesn’t mean that all our relationships stop us from working on loving God, but they all have the potential to! Let us look at a couple of tough situations.

One spouse is a believer one is not. It really doesn’t matter how much you “love each other”, at some point the non-believing spouse will resent the believing spouse “loving God”. In fact the very movement of the believing spouse toward God means they are moving away from the non-believing spouse. The potential for compromises in the believing spouse is enormous.

One parent in a family is persistently angry. The kids come to understand at some level that their heavenly father is an angry God. These kids are truly stuck. Angry parents are unsafe!

I do want to throw something else in here that I haven’t spoken of before. What if one doesn’t, “love the Lord”? It is a big problem! Let us take a look at 1 Cor 16:22.

If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha. NASU

We have probably all heard the word “anathema” at some point in our lives. Although it is used in English, it is actually a Greek word meaning “accursed” and it is used in connection with a damned person or thing. Paul uses it here in this dual-purpose verse. The Jews called Jesus an “anathema”, and here it is used to tell the Jews that if you don’t love the Lord, meaning Jesus, you are accursed. The other meaning is prophetic, and tells anyone who will listen that, if you don’t love the Lord, at the end of your life, you will be accursed, or damned. For me, this brings my need to love Jesus into real and eternal focus. Any comments?

Draws us closer to others

Again we need to dip into Matthew 22, (verse 39):

"The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' (NASU)

How does this relate to the subject of drawing closer to others? (Open class)

I think it might be instructive to us to take a look at 1 Cor 13:4-8(a):

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; (NASU)

When I look at this set of verses, I have to ask, am I living up to that? My answer is always, no! It is not a defeatist no, it is an encouraging no, and it says that I still have room to grow. In the context of our study this passage speaks of what kind of relationship environment is safe, let’s dissect it a little. A safe relational environment is:

· From v4, patient, kind, not jealous, not arrogant.
· From v5, not unbecoming, not selfish, not provoked, not unforgiving.
· From v6, hates sin, embraces truth.
· From v7, suffers everything, believes others, hopes in others, perseveres in everything.
· From v8, doesn’t fail.

When you adopt these standards, you are creating a safe environment around you; people will be drawn to you. Any thoughts?

Helps us to become the person that God created us to be.

Each of us is created for a unique purpose. Believe it or not this is a major theological issue at its core. Are we created to be a biological robot programmed to go to a certain place and do certain things, or to be a creature having a freedom to choose our course of action? What do you think?

This is where I stand on the subject. I’m going to start by looking at a couple of well-known verses that address this issue. First let’s look at Eph 2:10:

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (NASU)

Now let us add another verse with significance, Jer 29:11:

For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. NASU

Before I go on I would like to open the class to some input on these two verses. (A couple of minutes)

Okay, here it is. We were all created by and for God, and we are all assigned some “kingdom work” at that time. God plans that all of us are to experience His provision, a bright future and the hope of eternal life. Then we exercise our fallen nature in dealing with life, and His original plans are thwarted. But God can see across time and He changes His plans to fit our new circumstances, he has probably had to do that daily for me! This is a fulfillment of the scripture we all know, Rom 8:28:

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (NASU)

So God takes all the hurt and pain, all the missteps and messes, all the good and bad in our life and converts them into part of His plan for our lives. This is when we become the person that God created us to be.

The point of all this is that unsafe people and unsafe environments get in the way of God and His plan for our life. When these people and relationships are removed or they change to be safer, God’s plan in our lives can become more visible to us. Remember each person created has a plan!

Now we come to the major qualities of a safe person. I am going to differ slightly from the book, but still use their biblical basis. I think there are four major qualities of a safe person. Let’s look at this really meaningful verse, Jn 1:14:

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (NASU)

Before we identify the qualities, let’s discuss this verse. (Open)

The four qualities are as follows:

· Real.
· Near.
· Grace.
· Truth.

Real

All of us would probably agree with the statement, “God is safe”. Well as our verse says “He became flesh”. God didn’t just sit up there in heaven and say “I’m safe, believe me and I’ll save you from the consequences of your sins”. He came here, and he became flesh and blood, a human being, experiencing all the things we do. He fell down and scraped his knee, He played with his friends, He got betrayed, He was unjustly punished, He laughed and He cried. He was real!

Safe people live life with you, they are around in good and bad times, they are real!

Near

Have you ever said or heard an expression like this, ‘I’m really into him or her”? Our book calls it “dwelling”, and our verse calls in “dwelt among us”. All these things mean the same thing; they mean that a person feels close to us, they inhabit our space.

In the Old Testament, God is pictured as dwelling among His people in the tabernacle, and then in the Temple. Our verse tells us that Jesus chose to leave heaven and live in a new tabernacle, a human body. He chose to become near to us and inhabit our space. Instead of being God in heaven, he became near, he became God on earth, God with us.

Safe people are like that. They become physically and psychologically near. This obviously includes immediate physical proximity, but can also mean near through communicating on the phone, by mail or on the net. A near person will always be relational as the two of you interact, and the level of safety is high. Unsafe people while they can be physically near, will not be near from a relational perspective.

Unfortunately there is a type of unsafe person who can appear to be near, we call these predators. These people know about “nearness” and use it to gain control over others. The big difference between a safe person and a predator is the last characteristic “truth”.

Grace

What is grace? (Open) There seems to be three types of grace talked about in scripture.

· Revealed grace. The very universe and all that is in it is an act of grace from God, poured out through his power and given freely to all mankind.
· Saving grace. This is again a free act of God in allowing us to live with him eternally starting the day one accepts Jesus as Lord.
· Personal grace. A free action taken by a person in giving another person unmerited favor.

The grace we are looking at here is the last one. Grace can be given or received, and it can also be withheld. How do we feel when we receive grace from another person, even when we know we don’t deserve it? How about when we don’t receive it, but maybe expect it?

One of the ways I think about grace is this:

· Sometimes our relationships grind to a halt, much like a machine does when it has insufficient lubricant. Our life can seem to seize up on us. It is grace that helps the engine of life to begin to work smoothly. So one way to think of personal grace is that it is “Soul Oil” which when it is applied appropriately helps our relationships to run smoothly.

I hope that helps you to understand why a person filled with grace is described as a “safe person” by our authors.

There is a scripture that I think captures the essence of personal grace, but doesn’t actually use the word, it is Eph 4:32:

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (NASU)

When we read anything from chapter 4 through 6 of Ephesians we must try to remember that this whole section of Scripture is a lengthy instruction on walking in the manner we are called to. That is as a Christian. This means that the actual implementation of personal grace is an outward sign of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.

Truth

There is a famous line from scripture “What is truth?” Can you remember who said it, and why we would call it the ultimate ironic question? Our answers are found in Jn 18:38, and Jn 14:6.

Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" (NASU)

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. (NASU)

Jesus is truth, he lived truth, he always spoke truth out of love, and this is our goal if we want to be safe people. Let us look at Eph 4:15 and 4:25, notice we are back in Ephesians looking at instructions on how to be safer people!

But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, (NASU)

Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of you WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another. (NASU)

We have all heard this before; we are to speak the truth in love. So can somebody give us an example of speaking the truth in love, and then showing us how it might also be said in an unloving way?

· Your hair looks interesting. (Did you hit a buzz saw on the way home)
· Here’s the electric toothbrush honey. (Dude, halitosis)
· Earth tones don’t bring out the freshness in your complexion. (Girl, you look a little sick, cut out the mustard yellow dress)
· Darling you look a little worked up. (You sure have a mean and angry look on your face)

We all need people in our lives to help us stay on a straight path. If these people are to be truly safe, they must be honest with us, but not brutal. We all benefit from having people who combine grace with truth. It is the biblical mandate!

That is it for this week. Next week is July 4th weekend, and we will not be meeting. After that we will be into chapter 10, with the first of two lessons on “Why do we need safe people”?