Sunday, August 24, 2008

Dealing With Current Relationships

Good morning and welcome to the last lesson in our “Safe People” series. Today we are going to spend half our time on our topic of, “Dealing with current relationships”. The rest of our time will be covering the question, “What have I learned, or changed in my personal behavior, as a result of this study?” I am basing the teaching time on chapter 13 of our book, which is titled “Repair or Replace?”

By now we have all probably learned more about how to identify “them”, you know the “unsafe ones”. You know who I’m talking about, the users, abusers and manipulators, the abandoners, critics and irresponsibles, the unforgivers, blamers and shamers. We all have them in our lives, and I want to remind us all of the classic verse which we ought to try to remember. It is 1 Cor 15:33 which says:

Do not be deceived: "Bad company corrupts good morals." NASU

In the context of our study what does it say? Maybe a more interesting question though is, “What does it not say?” (Discuss)

In the strictest sense Paul, the writer, was talking about not getting misled by false or bad teaching in our attempts to live a Godly life. In our context here I think it is best thought of as a warning to be careful about how, “bad company”, meaning unsafe people, can lead us away from a godly life. What it doesn’t say though is to “only associate with safe people”, or to “remove all unsafe people totally from your life”. Let us look at why these two statements might be true.

First, what if we only associated with “safe people”, how would that be for us? (Discuss) When I thought about this there were several things that crossed my mind. I thought that it might be a very healthy thing, to be around people who would help get my needs met, and who I could in turn help when they had needs. I still like that idea. Then I thought that would mean I wouldn’t have chance to meet the needs of unsaved people. That in turn meant I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my part in the great commission, which says in Mt 28:18-20:

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." NASU

My last big thought about only associating with safe people was that would mean I might have to not associate with my family, as they have some level of unsafeness about them. Does anybody have anything to say about that?

What if we actually tried to remove all the unsafe people from our life? Wouldn’t we be better off? We wouldn’t have to deal with any immoral infections, isn’t that a blessing? The unthinking answer is obviously “yes”, but is it the “right” answer? (Discuss) Can you think of some reasons why the actual answer is “no”, we should not remove all the unsafe people from our life. Here are some I came up with:

· They can be a lot of fun! (That may not be a “righteous” answer!)
· They provide us with challenge.
· They need help; they have problems.
· God is close to them. (Ps 34:18)

It is that last reason that is the important one, let us look at this issue by reading Ps 34:18:

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. NASU

Please follow me in this. The core or general reason that somebody is unsafe is that there are things that are malfunctioning in their soul. The Mind, Heart and Will are not working well together, and most likely are not operating in God’s will. Scripture calls this brokenhearted. So let me paraphrase our verse here for our study purposes.

Jesus is close to unsafe people, and saves those that are spiritually crushed.

It is God, and only God, who is able to heal or change a brokenhearted person. So He is always near to and ready to help an unsafe person when they want His assistance. Think about a time when you were down and out, wasn’t God ready to leap into action when you called His name? God is our witness, He is our example, and if He chooses to be near the brokenhearted then so do I. Let me say it another way, if you are looking for God, go find someone to help, because He is there!

Our book lays out a six-step process out for helping people in our lives that are unsafe. The authors have done a great job of explaining it all, so I only want to reinforce a couple of points.

· Change – The unsafe person will only change when they are willing to. God Himself will not force someone to change, and neither should we! Change is almost never accomplished quickly, so exercise that wonderful spiritual gift you have called “patience”. Always remember that you may also need to make a few changes too!
· Spread the load – Memorize the truth of Pr 11:14(b) which says, “But in abundance of counselors there is victory.” (NASU) Seek the help of other safe people, in the provision of counsel or emotional comfort and support.

That is all I want to say, from a teaching perspective, now we can move to the time of testimony. Here are three questions to focus on:

· What have you learned as a result of this study?
· What actual changes of behavior have you made in your life?
· Have you seen any positive changes in the behavior of those around you, as you have made your changes?

I want to thank everybody for sticking it out through this long study, and I promise you that if you adhere to the principles laid out over the last four months, life will get easier for you.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

LEARNING HOW TO BE SAFE (2 OF 2)

Today is the penultimate lesson in our series “Safe People” and we are going to cover the second part of chapter 12. Today’s topics are:

· Inviting the truth about yourself.
· Enter into Forgiveness.
· Giving Back.

In our series we have often talked about the importance of truth, and so I’ll give it only a light covering today. I want to spend more time on forgiveness and giving back as two less well covered topics.

Inviting Truth

What does, “inviting truth”, mean to you? (Open for discussion) The book says (on p180) that if we ask two questions of our safe people on a regular basis, we will start to receive the truth about ourselves. These are:

1. What do I do that pushes you away from me?
2. What do I do that draws you toward me?

I want to start looking at these questions by asking ourselves what does scripture say about this. Let us take a look at Jn 8:31-32:

So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." NASU

A well-known and well-used verse! Let us unpack this and we will see the relevance to our subject of inviting truth. Let me read you the Amplified Bible version for some clarity.

So Jesus said to those Jews who had believed in Him, if you abide in My word [hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them], you are truly My disciples. And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free. AMP

Jesus here is speaking to the Jews who had been following Him around, and had believed in what He was teaching. Notice it doesn’t say, “that believed in Him”, so he wasn’t speaking to disciples, but he was speaking to followers. He then tells them, and by inference anybody who hears this instruction, how to be saved. I know that you may not have heard it put this way, but that is what it says. Let me explain it.

Jesus says in v 32, “If you abide in me” (AMP), some versions use “continue in Me”, and others say, “hold to My teaching”. This is immediately followed by the words “then you are my disciples”, which we might understand as “believers”. The key here is to understand the word translated as “abide”, it is “meno”, meaning to “stay in” or “dwell in”. We often hear this spiritual concept put as “being in Christ”, it is specifically used this way in 1 Jn 2:27 which says:

As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him. NASU

Jesus goes on to tell us that once we “abide in Him” we will know the truth, and it will free us. The freedom He is talking about is the freedom from the guilt of sin, and its eternal consequence, meaning we are saved.

The relevance to us is this. If we are “in Him” we can go to other believers and we can go to the Lord for the truth with a lot of confidence. We know that believers who we feel safe with will attempt to speak the truth in love, and that God will always do that.

Enter Into Forgiveness

The book doesn’t really explain this succinctly; so let me ask you, what does the phrase “enter into forgiveness” mean to you. (Discuss) To me it says something like “adopt a lifestyle of forgiveness”. This further implies being always ready and able to give forgiveness, and accept it too. Forgiveness means so many different things to different people, what does it mean to you? (Discuss)

I think it is important to get the appropriate grounding in this subject before we ever go on to applying it in our lives. Let’s begin by distinguishing between human or worldly, and divine forgiveness. Would anybody like to offer a beginning point of differentiation between the two?

Most of us understand that human forgiveness, at its best, is the total cancellation of some form of debt. There are some characteristics of human forgiveness which we can identify:

· Repentance of the offender is not necessary.
· Some form of debt is cancelled.
· The consequences of the offense continue.
· Punishment for the offense usually still occurs.
· The guilt of the offender continues in their Soul.
· All concerned parties remember the offense.

Now let us look at the same things from the perspective of divine forgiveness:

· Repentance: - is present.
· Debt: - all sin debt is cancelled forever.
· Consequences: - Earthly consequences continue, spiritual consequences are eliminated.
· Punishment: - God gives up His right to punish us.
· Guilt: - is erased by God from His memory, although we may choose to hang on to it.
· Memory: - While we might hold on to and continue to remember the offense, God doesn’t.

We can see that there are some important differences in forgiveness between what we can do in our own power and what God does. I am reminded of those two verses from Isaiah, if you like to write in or highlight your Bible, these two are worth noting and always remembering. Is 55:8-9:

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. NASU

So it is with forgiveness, God’s ways are higher than ours, and this is a bad news good news thing for us. The bad news is that we can forgive others but it has limitations, the good news is that with God’s help we can forgive others without limitations. Let me ask you two very significant questions:

· When do you know you’ve forgiven somebody?
· When do you know you have been forgiven?

(Discuss first) The answers to these two questions can be found in our list of “divine forgiveness characteristics”.

· You know you have forgiven somebody when you don’t remember his or her offense.
· You know you have been forgiven when you feel no guilt about your offense.

I will be the first to say that these two “states of mind” are difficult to achieve. In fact they are impossible to achieve without God. My point here is simple; if you need to be forgiven, or if you need to forgive another person, go to God first with the issue. If a person will not forgive you, that becomes their problem, but you can go to God, who will forgive you. If you need to forgive another person, go to God, He will give you the power to forgive.

Let us now turn to the why question. Why do I have to forgive? Does anybody have some thoughts on this? (Discuss) One answer is that we ought to do it because of fear. Let’s look at these verses, Mt 6:14-15:

"For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” NASU

It is Jesus that says this in His “Sermon on the Mount” right after He gives us the model prayer that we call “The Lord’s Prayer”. So we could forgive others because we are afraid that if we don’t, then we will not be forgiven. While the words of Jesus recorded here are true, if we focus on the fear, we will miss the point of what He is saying. This is it! When any of us choose to not forgive, we have placed ourselves above God. God forgives every offense, every debt, every sin, and If we don’t, we are saying we have more power than Him. So, can we expect God to forgive us, when we placing ourselves above Him? No, we are as arrogant as the devil when we are unforgiving.

The real reason that God strongly insists that we are forgiving is simple. When we are unforgiving we carry around the hurts and resentments that are attached to an offense. As we live our lives and start to accumulate these hurts and resentments, they start to form something I like to describe as a “cancer of the Soul”. As this “cancer of the Soul” grows, it puts down a root, scripture calls this the root of bitterness, so lets look at this for a moment, turn to Heb 12:15:

See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled. NASU

This scripture can be applied to any root of bitterness, but for today let us look at it in the context of forgiveness. Forgiveness, for us as believers, is a work of God’s grace. When we don’t tap into His grace in being forgiving, which our verse calls “coming short”; the risk is that a root of bitterness springs up in our Soul. The verse then says something very profound, “by it many are defiled”. What might this mean? (Discuss)

I want to answer this by recognizing that we all know somebody who is unforgiving. What are they like? They are poison to us and our relationships with others. They infect the people around them with the spiritual disease of gracelessness. They are truly bitter people and they try to make everybody around them the same way, so as to affirm their unforgiving heart. These are people who need to be avoided; they are unsafe.

Unforgiveness produces bitter roots, forgiveness produces fruit. This is why I said earlier that we must adopt a lifestyle of forgiveness. It is a personal choice we can all make.

Now I want to turn to some things that are said in sermons, and Christian literature, about forgiveness that are not healthy teachings.

The first is the idea of forgiving oneself. The Bible does just not support this. I have heard this so many times that I wonder if I have got this right, but I have. This goes back to the same issue we discussed earlier, about placing oneself above or in place of God. This is a well meant, but false teaching and needs to be challenged every time somebody says it. Ask this question, “If we can forgive ourselves, what need do we have for God?”

The second error is saying that forgiveness is a process, it is not, it is a choice, a decision made in a moment of time. Now, I do have some sympathy for this error, because we sometimes have to go through a process to get to the point of a forgiveness decision. Each person’s process is going to be different and I don’t have time today to cover this adequately, but I’ll speak to a few common processes. Sometimes we have to deal with our own unconfessed sins, our guilt, other times we might have to pray for a softening of our hearts, and on other occasions we might need to see the truth of a situation differently.

The last error is where we are advised to “just do it”, just forgive and move on. This is not good advice. Even when we are living a lifestyle of forgiveness we cannot automatically “just do it”. There are always going to be some offenses that we need to process and consult with God and our safe people about. Sometimes a rush to forgive minimizes the pain and even hides it away in our Soul; this will lead to it coming up again. It is far better to go to God or safe friends with the pain, share it with them, and try to sense what God might want you know about the situation. One of the biggest single problems about a rush to forgive is that we gloss over or ignore our part in a situation.

Okay, that is where I want to stop on this subject, but I’m open to any questions that might be unasked.

Giving Back

Our scriptures are full of encouragement to give back and serve others. Personally I believe that it is when we recognize what we have been given, and adopt an attitude of gratefulness, that we are able to give back.

I only want to say one thing more about this topic, and I’m going to connect it with forgiveness. In the gospel of Luke, chapter 7, Jesus has been invited to dinner with a prominent Pharisee named Simon. A woman, described as a sinner, comes in and weeping, pours expensive perfume on Jesus feet, and wipes his feet with her hair. Simon criticizes Jesus’ response, and after speaking a parable he says something to Simon. We find it in Lk 7:44-48:

Turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. "You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet. " You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. "For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little." NASU

This woman is giving back. She understood the extent of her forgiveness, and was giving back everything she could. I say this; her sins were many, so are mine and so are yours. I am choosing to accept the immense forgiveness of God, I am choosing to be grateful and I choose to give back and serve the Lord. For me, it means teaching, for others it can be many different things.

I hope you can see that giving back, as our sinful woman did, is an outside expression of our internal spiritual condition.

That is it for this week. Next week will be our last lesson and we will look at dealing with our current unsafe relationships, and also listen to each other about how this series has changed our thinking and behaviors.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

LEARNING HOW TO BE SAFE (1 of 2)

Good morning and welcome to lesson 16 of our study of ‘Safe People”. We are on the home stretch of our study marathon and I know I’m feeling tired. But it has all been worthwhile, as what we have been looking at has been strengthening our belief system in that we see how God’s word helps us in practical ways our daily lives. This morning each of us here comes to a decision point, am I going to apply what I’ve learned to my own life. Our lesson this week and next covers the topic, “Learning How To Be Safe”. This is the challenge, am I going to work on being safer or am I going to stay right where I am? Let me put it really clearly for you. “Am I going to do what God says to do, or am I going to live in disobedience?”

That was how it was framed in my mind after I reviewed the chapter. After I had read this good stuff, and acknowledged the scriptural basis for it, I was confronted with the reality. This was not just about learning some good personal practices; this was about obedience! I was reminded of one of those small but significant verses, 1 Sam 15:22b-23b:

To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. NASU

What does this mean to you today? (Open for discussion)

With this in mind, we are now going to move into the meat of the lesson. The book, in chapter 12, has six steps for us to take. They are; ask for help, learn to need, work through resistances, invite the truth about yourself, enter into forgiveness, and give something back. We will be looking at the first three today, and the last three next week. Okay let us jump right in!

Ask for help

This is “big”! Our authors are trying to get us to connect with the understanding that asking for help is not about getting our physical needs met, even though that is necessary, it is about getting our Soul needs met. What do I mean by that, what are some of our common “Soul needs”? (Discuss, list) I’ve listed a few here, and I recommend that you write them down somewhere, like in your Bible for a permanent record.

· Comfort, Support, and Encouragement.
· Affection, Affirmation and Attention.
· Approval, Appreciation, Security and Respect.

Do you ask for these? I would like to try a simple “modeling” exercise here, I need two lady volunteers. (Get the two volunteers, we’ll call them Dolores and Kathie, and place them in the center of the class and have them seated opposite each other.)

Dolores: Kathie, I’ve asked you out for coffee this morning because I need some help.

Kathie: Well we’ve been friends for a long time Dolores, how can I help?

Dolores: I’ve gone and done it again, I’ve bought some fabulous Gucci shoes, they were on sale for $499 at Neimans, and I promised Ralph I wouldn’t do something like that again, what should I do?

Kathie: (Go with the flow, which means start trying to meet what you think Dolores needs, keeping you parts of the conversation short

Dolores: (Respond to Kathie – try to keep your parts short too)

(Allow the conversation to go on for a minute or two, then stop it and ask the class for comments)

In the book, the writers list out 5 benefits that come as a result of asking, I’m going to look at two of them here. The ones I’m not covering are, owning our needs, taking initiative and becoming grateful. These are all healthy things to consider but we don’t have time to look at everything.

Asking develops humility – Does anybody here have a problem with asking for something because of personal pride? I do, and I think it is a character defect of mine. Does anybody here this morning relate to this? Let us try to answer the question, “Why is this true, why does asking for our “Soul needs” to be met by others develop humility?” (Discuss) This is very much a “God thing” and from scripture we can see why, Let us look at 1 Pet 5:5d, which is a direct quote from Pr 3:34:

GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. NASU

What might be a reasonable interpretation of this? For me it says that my pride gets in the way of God doing His work of grace in my life. The application of this is simple, if any of us wants to work on becoming more humble, ask others for help with our ‘Soul needs”.

The second point I want to cover about asking is, asking increases the odds that you will get what you want. We might all think “What a no-brainer”, but the truth is our actions tell us what we really believe. We don’t ask because we are avoiding dealing with difficult things in our lives. Can anybody help us here with some “Soul need” examples?

· I’m depressed, but I won’t reach out because I want people to think I’m actually happy.
· I feel worthless because I really messed up at work today, but I don’t want anybody to know I’m incompetent.
· I feel like a failure, my youngest has been caught taking drugs at school; maybe there is an explanation for it.

Asking takes practice. If any of us this here this morning has a “Soul need”, resolve to call somebody in the class to tell them about it, and ask for help.

Learn to need

We all have needs, some of them are obvious to us, some are not, and some are obvious to others but not to ourselves. Needs are a messy thing to have to deal with. While we can often get our needs met by our own efforts, usually this is only effective for physical needs. When it come to “Soul needs”, it is other people that can help us, and I include God Himself as part of “other people”. We are designed to relate to God and others, and that is just the way it is. We have to be in relationships to get our “Soul needs” met. So, our authors have laid out a few things that we can do to reach out to others for the healthy meeting of our ‘Soul needs”.

First – Confess the inability to need. This might sound strange to you, but it is well put. We all put our needs on the back burner when we can’t rely or depend or trust others. We have to admit this to ourselves, to God and to other people. This is called confession. Let’s refer back to our list of “Soul needs” from earlier, which one is the one you might need to confess to having a hard time admitting? (Open for someone to admit one of these needs)

Second, don’t pretend to have a need you don’t actually have. It is a lie! That is all I want to say on that. Third, keep good boundaries. This is essential in life of course, but here the risk is that you get swamped by well meaning people. A good example is the grief discussion we have talked about here lately. If we express that we are sorrowful at a loss and need some comfort, some people call us a few times a day to see if we are “okay”, well meaning but annoying. Laying out decent boundaries can keep the “comfort” calls to reasonable levels.

Fourth, admit needs that you cannot connect with. For example, you might know that you need accountability partners, but you have never had any in the past. Admit that, and also admit that you can’t connect with this need very well, and require help getting to the point of connection.

Lastly, look for “awakenings”. I’m not talking about some new age mumbo jumbo here. I’m talking about paying attention to how you feel when you talk about your needs. There will be moments when your Soul is touched by a thought or feeling or an action and you sense that a little joy or peace has arrived inside you. It feels like you have “woken up” from something.

A word or two on needs - Scripture talks sparingly, or so it seems to me, about needs. We are all familiar with the scripture (Ph 4:19) that talks about supplying all your needs, and I want to be sure to warn us to not misuse it. It is almost always used out of context, let me explain: It says:

And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. NASU

We have all heard it said like this “My God will” or “God will supply”, but that is not what it says, the sentence begins with “And” meaning something goes before it. This is context, Paul who wrote this was saying that he has asked God to meet the needs of the people who helped him, namely the Philippians.

I’m sorry if I’ve just pricked someone’s bubble, but it is wrong to go around believing that God meets all needs. A simple example is that we would all agree that every person born “needs” to receive the Lord and be saved. God has the power to make that happen, but does he supply that for every person, no, of course not. Let us see what He actually does say about needs, look at Titus 3:13-14:

Diligently help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way so that nothing is lacking for them. Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful. NASU

It appears to be God’s intention that he will supply our needs through the good deeds of ourselves and others. Reflect for a moment how many times throughout the Bible we are exhorted to help meet the needs of the poor, which includes both physical and “Soul” needs. (Open for discussion)

A last word – if you tell someone that their needs will be met by God, and they do not get their needs met, will that build or hurt their faith? Unless you have received a word from God, don’t tell someone in any way that his or her needs will be met, because if you do you are speaking as if you are God, which you are not. All you can say is that you believe their needs can be met by God.

Work through resistances

This subject is all about the barriers that we all have to allowing others to help us with our “Soul needs” and in becoming safer. What kinds of barriers do you either have yourself or see in others to becoming safer? (Open)

· Passivity
· Fear
· Pride
· Hard Heart

These are just some of them. We all have these barriers, and if you think that you are relatively open or “barrier-free” you might consider this scripture 1 Cor 10:12:

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. NASU

This comes from a section of scripture that discusses sin in the historical context of the sins of the nation of Israel. That nation constantly thought that had it all together, and did it by their own strength and talents. God allowed them to fall, as he will allow us to fall and fail if we think we can do it alone. We have barriers and we are to work at pushing them aside with God’s help. The authors suggest some things to work on.

Identify them – I think that is obvious, but the key to successfully doing this is to acknowledge and believe that other people can see things in us that we can’t see in ourselves. Ask others what they think our barriers are.

When you know what some of them are, tell a trusted person or two and ask them to help you work at removing them. You have to do the work; the friends can provide encouragement.

Some barriers spring up due to old habits or hurts. You may have to get with a professional counselor to help you identify the underlying issues that cause the barriers to spring up.

Here is one last thing, and I never thought I might say this, and this is in the book. Rebel, fight against the old messages that tell you something unbiblical about your barriers. An example is, “I can do this by myself”, rebel against that type of thinking.

That is it for today. Next week we are going to cover the truth, forgiveness and giving back in learning to be safe.