Good morning, today we begin our two-week look at the subject of chapter 3 of our book, the interpersonal traits of unsafe people. We will be covering the first five traits as listed on the comparison sheet that was handed out two weeks ago; I have a few more if you would like one.
Scripture has a whole lot of things to say about the subject of interpersonal relationships. The health and safety of these relationships is fully determined by our interpersonal traits. So I thought it would be helpful to look at some of what I call the “one anothers”. So I am now going to hand out a two-sided sheet with these “one another” scriptures. These are a compilation, from the NT, of commands, directives and suggestions on how to relate to each other. Let’s review a few of them before we get into the lesson.
Starting with the first two listed and read together, Jn 13:34-35:
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 " By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." NASU
Who is speaking to us here? Yes, it is Jesus, speaking with His father’s authority in commanding us to do what to one another? Love. Does He mean the kind of love we might have for a shopping or golfing buddy? What is core direction He is giving to us? Agape love, which is the unconditional love he showed us in everything he did while he was here. In verse 35 He points out that keeping this commandment is an acid test for something, what is it? (Discuss – This is how any person will be able to tell if you are a Christian, a Christ follower and doer of His word.)
How about Rom 12:10:
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; NASU
This is from the chapter of Romans that urges us to separate ourselves from the worldly way of life, so that we can serve the Lord. This verse is right in the middle commanding us to willfully be “devoted in brotherly love” and to prefer one another. What do these two commands mean? {Have a high level of affection for and place above us, our fellow believers} Safe people do this, unsafe people don’t!
One last passage, Heb 10:24-25
And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. NASU
What does this say to you? (Discuss) To me it says; think about how you can encourage your fellow believers to be ever more loving, ever more willing to serve the Lord’s purposes, and to continue to meet in fellowship in the Lord’s name.
I want to take a small aside here and ask about the whole idea of “good deeds”. This is very relevant to the subject of “interpersonal traits”. We hear in church life about doing good deeds, what is the big deal about good deeds? (Open the floor)
First, what is a good deed?
Second, how many good deeds does it take to get you into heaven?
Third, are Christians to perform good deeds?
Lastly, what does your level of good deeds tell us about you?
My own personal definition of a good deed:
Any action taken by a believer, out of love and obedience to Christ, which glorifies the Father.
In the context of today’s subject of interpersonal traits, we can see a few general statements can be made:
· Unsafe interpersonal actions don’t glorify the Father.
· Self-centered interpersonal actions are not obedient to Christ.
· Actions that try to control others are not done out of love for Christ.
I say that the way we treat others is the single biggest outward sign of our internal spiritual condition. These interpersonal actions show others how much we want to glorify the Father, through love and obedience to Christ. Do you remember the verses from Jn 13 we quoted earlier?
Let’s move on to the five traits we will be covering today.
1. Unsafe people avoid closeness.
What does this mean to you? (Discuss) Some of you were in the class when we covered the topic of “what we were created for” during a previous study, let’s look at the verse that sums it up Gen 2:18:
Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." NASU
We were made to relate to others, we were made for relationships! There are some truths about this that we can state.
· We can choose HOW we participate in relationships.
· We cannot choose WHETHER we participate.
· Our only real choice is HOW MUCH we will work at them.
The unsafe person is the one that will not work at a relationship from a quality perspective, although they may hog your time. They don’t want to share their “stuff”, to be open, vulnerable or intimate. Safe people have a heart’s desire to connect, they are willing to share. They may begin by sharing minor “stuff” until the relationship deepens and mutual trust and safety develops, then the relationship can become more intimate. The book has a truly good question we can ask in any relationship situation.
Does this relationship breed more togetherness or more isolation within me?
Any last thoughts?
2. Unsafe People Focus on “I”
Have you met the people who talk incessantly about themselves? How do you feel after being with them for a while? Once in a while I feel like I need a bath so I can get all the dirt off. Constantly talking about your self and all your problems is a one-way street and you are driving down it, with the rest of the world trying to walk the other way.
Scripture has something very simple and yet profound to say on this subject. Can anyone quote or paraphrase the “golden rule”? Let’s look at it, it is found in the “Sermon on the Mount” in Mt 7:12:
"In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets. NASU
This is known in the world of counseling as “empathy”, and we are to all do it for three reasons.
· Jesus said to.
· It changes the focus of a relationship from “I” to we”.
· It leads to easier victories over problems.
There are many benefits to being empathetic, and although I intend to only look at one, let us gather some ideas on how empathy helps our relationships. (Discuss)
To me the greatest thing about empathy is knowing and understanding what the other person is going through. It is relating to their thoughts and feelings about their lives, putting myself in their place. (Ask what some of the specific benefits might be) I am less liable to judge or condemn. I am more able to provide encouragement or guidance. I can connect. Their burden becomes my burden too, and we can share it, making it lighter. When good results come, I can share in the joy without taking it away from the other person.
Are there any more thoughts on empathy?
3. Unsafe People Resist Freedom
In the book, the authors suggest another one of those “gem” questions.
In a relationship what does the other person do with my “no”?
Can anybody relate to that, or think of examples of this? (Discuss) One of my pet peeves is people on the phone. I’m on the phone a lot in my work, sometimes I get a person on the other end who just won’t get off, they want to talk and talk, they don’t accept my “no”. How about the overly persistent sales person? Ever been dogged in a store? That’s why I hate to go to somewhere like Star Furniture; sometimes I just want to look! You know what, next time I go I might just ask the sales person if they are safe! I acknowledge that I might be being a little unfair to them, because they aren’t all that way, but I think I’ve made my point.
The central issue here is boundaries. Unsafe people don’t recognize and respect our personal boundaries. They don’t let us maintain our own identity. They are constantly getting themselves knotted up in our lives. This is called enmeshment, and it is a real challenge to deal with. Let’s look at the following passage and see if we can identify the downside of enmeshment. Gal 5:13-15:
For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. NASU
It shows that not living in freedom, which means having your own clear and distinct boundaries in this context, can result in being consumed. What might this mean in a practical everyday sense? (Discuss – Being consumed results in us not being able to use our resources, time, talent and possessions in effective ways)
4. Unsafe People Flatter us
The flatterer can be one of the best people to hang out with. What they say is designed to make us feel good, and it usually does. So, what exactly is the problem with a little flattery? (Discuss)
I think that the essence of the issue is that flattery gives us a false sense of ourselves and our abilities. There is an excellent warning about flattery found in Rom 16:17-18:
Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting. NASU
What does our Scripture tell us here that flattery will do to us? It will deceive our heart!
5. Unsafe People Condemn Us
Don’t they just? Over the years I have developed a mental picture of a condemning person. Some of you have heard about “Velcro-man” and “Plankman”, well now I’m going to introduce the “Dog Handler”. My wife and I have some friends who used to own a dog called “Whiskey”. Whiskey was not an obedient dog, and always seemed to be getting into trouble. The man was forever chasing the dog around, wagging his finger and shouting “bad dog”, bad dog”. For some reason whenever somebody is giving me the wagging finger, or condemning me, I think of myself as a dog that is being chased around and shouted at like this. Bad dog, bad dog, bad Ken, bad Ken.
Amusing yes, and it is just my silly way of dealing with the condemners of this world. It is not that I mind it when something I have done is pointed out as not being okay. It is the motive behind the exposure of a character flaw or unsavory action that I am interested in. If it is a put down, I will very likely get upset with the messenger instead of my own actions. This will be especially true if the condemnation goes on and on, or the past is always being dragged up. Any thoughts?
What does the Bible tell us to do in a situation where the worldly way is to condemn? Yes, we must adopt an attitude of forgiveness. Let’s see this laid out in Eph 4:31-32:
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. NASU
When somebody has hurt you, don’t choose to be an unsafe person yelling “bad dog” in condemnation. Choose to be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving.
That is a good note on which to end today’s lesson. Next week we will look at the remaining interpersonal traits from chapter 3.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Personal Traits of Unsafe People (2)
Today we are going to cover the second set of six “personal” traits of unsafe people. This consists of the remaining five from the book, and I’ve added the last one, which is “act like heroes”. The complete list can be found on the table I handed out last week, I have extra copies if anyone needs one.
I’m actually going to start right where we left off last week. On the subject of denial, which was identified as the biggest single cause of people not working on their problems. Let me either refresh your memory, or introduce you to what was said about denial if you weren’t able to make it last week.
What is denial? Webster’s says it is, “A refusal to acknowledge the truth”.
Wikipedia says, “Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.”
There seems to be three major aspects to denial, and they are:
1. Denying the reality of the fact. This is normally what most people think of as “denial”.
2. Admit the fact, but deny the seriousness of it, we call that minimization.
3. Admit the fact and the seriousness, but deny responsibility, that is called transference or sometimes blaming others.
It is denial that is the biggest road block to getting better, it is denial that stops healing from even beginning, it is denial that puts a hand in God’s face saying “No”.
I want to hold out an example of denial to you, and to some of you this may sound somewhat critical, but please hear this as a word from my heart. Many people have been told about this study we are in, and our whole church has been informed about it since before Easter. Some of these people have received the conviction of the Holy Spirit that they ought to come and listen, to participate, to learn and to grow. It is denial of the reality of their personal needs that is stopping them from being here. Everybody here this morning has stepped out of denial and into the truth, and God will bless all of us because of it. Does anybody have any comments about this?
In 1908 a young man from Philadelphia, Frank Buchman, experienced a moment of spiritual transformation and started a mission church for the drunks and other down and outs on the streets with all he had, 17 dollars. Later, after his trustees cut his food budget, he left and went to England. While attending a religious convention in Keswick, England, he experienced a massive chasm between himself and Christ, and sensed that he needed to surrender his will. This was the moment that precipitated the formation of a group now called “The Oxford Group” at Oxford University. This group founded to promote absolute standards of honesty, purity, love and unselfishness. This group was the originator of what we now know as Alcoholics Anonymous through the workings of God through it into Bill Wilson’s life. As some of you may know, Bill W. is usually recognized as one of the founders of AA.
The point in telling you this is that the twelve steps of AA, and then every twelve step program after that were a direct result of people stepping out of denial and into the truth. The whole “recovery” movement began with the working of God in one person’s life, and that person’s obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Originally, AA was a God centered approach to the problem of addiction to alcohol, and in the early years achieved a more than 75% success rate in getting people off the bottle, and keeping them off. As the program became larger, it diluted itself, and God was replaced with the term “higher power as you know it”. The success rate is now less than 25%. Some AA people I know still call this success, but I would challenge that assessment, based on their own history. There is a lesson here, when you don’t include God in your healing process or dealing with your personal problems, you are more likely to fail. I want us to look at the twelve steps now, and we are going to use the CR at the Park brochure. (Read the steps)
Let us all see how step one shows us how to get out of denial and move into the truth in any area of our life.
“We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors; that our lives had become unmanageable.”
This is it:
1. We admit we are powerless over something.
2. We realize we can’t control ourselves in that area of our lives.
3. We understand that that part of our life is unmanageable.
It doesn’t have to be an addiction. It can be a habitual behavior; an attitude or an ungodly thought life. The point is that we have to come out of denial about a behavior, or a bad relationship, to be able to deal with it.
If, during the course of this study, you sense that the Holy Spirit is helping you see some form of denial in your life, please don’t ignore it. God doesn’t want any of us to get stuck in our lives, and nor do I. Communicate with any of us who are knowledgeable about the twelve steps, remembering to stick with your own gender of course. (Identify twelve steppers in group).
Okay, now let’s get back on track. Let’s move to the unsafe trait of “Demanding Trust”
7. Demand Trust.
Have you ever said, “Don’t you trust me”? We all have! The real underlying statement behind this is, “How dare you question my integrity!”
Let me ask an open question, does God ever ask that question? The answer is no, He never does and He never will. He does say about Himself that He is trustworthy; in fact His word says that He is the only trustworthy one. To understand this more completely we have to know that in the Jewish culture trust and truth are often interchangeable words. Remembering this, let’s look at 1 Jn 5:20:
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. NASU
This scripture identifies that God is truth; it is a characteristic of God. In the context of our study God is the ultimate trustworthy person, and He never demands trust.
What do you think we are doing when we demand trust? (We are putting ourselves above God!) So this is it, on trust. God sets the standard. He says I’m trustworthy, let my actions show it, then you can believe me. I will earn your trust.
Why do we think we can do trust better than God? We can’t! We too must earn trust, one day at a time. The floor is open to any comments or thoughts on trust.
8. Believe They Are Perfect
This character wart is sometimes difficult to hear. Perfectionism, which can also be called “the drive to project an image of being perfect”, is a big trap. When someone’s perfect little world is upset, the unsafe person will often attack others. It can even be their own children when they spill a glass of milk, or their husband when he passes gas in public. Ridiculous, I don’t think so. How about the successful businessman who trades his less than perfect wife in for a younger model? Does that sound sick? Yes, but we all know it happens.
This “I’m perfect, so everything around me must reflect it” attitude is pervasive, right here in Katy, Texas. It is so destructive for relationships. Can anybody testify about this in any way? (How about the schools?)
The single biggest issue I have with the person who acts like they are perfect is that they demand it of everybody around them. Can anybody else identify with that? When someone around me is demanding perfection because they are “perfect”, I want to be somewhere else, I get frustrated and sometimes angry as a response. This whole “perfect” thing puts distance between two people; it devalues one person in the eyes of the other and builds barriers to intimacy in important relationships.
In Rom 3:23 we get a godly perspective on this:
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, NASU
Applied in context here, it says, nobody is perfect. The person who believes they are perfect, is basically stating that they are equal to God. To maintain that high standard, they have to blame other people for all that is not right around them. This of course is why “perfect” people have few, if any, close friends, and why their marital relationships are often rocky.
9. Blame Others
The book says it so well. Safe people take responsibility for their lives, unsafe people don’t. Unsafe people will often choose to blame others, including the people they “love”, for their own problems. Sometimes they will blame God or the Devil, or even their dog for what they do. Have you ever heard these phrases “God told me to do it” or “The Devil made me do it”? Let’s look at the first time this happened. It is found in Gen 3:12-13:
The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, " The serpent deceived me, and I ate." NASU
This is what I call a ‘threefer”. It has both phrases and an extra one. God and the Devil get blamed, and so does the woman. I would say that this kind of finger pointing still happens today.
Can you see “denial” at work here? The blamer is unsafe to others around him or her, as they get the blamers problems hoisted on them. The blamer is unable and unwilling to work on getting through their own stuff
10 Lie Persistently
Why do people lie? Let’s discuss this, but first let’s remember that every one of us lies, this will allow us to retain some perspective in our discussion.
· To avoid feelings, like shame.
· To survive, or protect oneself.
· To deceive.
· For personal gain.
· Don’t want to give bad news.
· Just because I can.
· To feel important.
What do you think the downside of lying is? (Discuss) How does it play itself out in relationships? (Discuss)
I know we all understand that lying is not a morally acceptable behavior, and I am using moral in the sense of comparing our action against scriptural imperatives. But have you considered lying from this very different view. Let us see what Jesus says in Jn 8:44-45:
You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. NASU
I hope this rattles you as much as it rattled me when the meaning of this was revealed to me. What does the class think it means, on a personal level?
· That, when I lie, I have more in common with the devil than I do with the Lord.
Does that thought shock you?
The book quite rightly talks about how the safe person works on trying to correct any lying behavior that he or she does. The unsafe person, however, simply uses lying as a way to get ahead, and has no thought or intention of changing his or her ways.
I know this is easy to say and hard to do. If you are caught in a lie, either by another person or self-caught, admit it, take the consequence, and put it behind you, purposing to not do it again.
If you are the person confronting the liar, pray for an attitude of grace and forgiveness, remembering that you too have lied during your life. Be an encourager to the person trying to quit the bad habit.
If you are faced with an unrepentant liar, as far as is possible, disassociate yourself from them.
11. Are Stagnant.
Some people seem to be happy right where they are. Some Christians appear to have settled for a “no growth” or a “growth if it accidentally happens policy”. Why is this? (Discuss) Some might say a few of the following. Lazy, Too hard, Bad Experiences, No time, Not a priority, or Hedonist.
These are all excuses, not reasons. From both a worldly or spiritual perspective we are expected to grow, and we are wired for it too.
Consider what Paul has to say about personal growth. (Ph 2:12-13)
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. NASU
What does this mean to you as you hear this verse? (Discuss) We are instructed quite frequently in scripture to “clean up our act”. Those are my words; the Bible usually puts it in terms of renewal, repentance or to create a clean heart. This verse is consistent with those other commands, and it explains things a little more for us. It says we are to “work out our own salvation”, this is clear in telling us we have a part in the whole process of cleaning our selves up, spiritually speaking. That implies that nobody can do it for us, we alone are responsible. In verse 13, it tells us that God is also at work in us. This is best understood as He partners with us in the work of salvation.
The key word in all of this short passage is “salvation”. I want to make sure that we understand what Paul meant when he wrote this. Has anybody studied this passage before, and is comfortable sharing what he or she previously learned?
Salvation in this verse is not the use of the word, “salvation”, as in the moment we accept Christ, we are permanently saved. It refers to the ongoing work called sanctification, which is usually thought of as “cleaning up” our Souls. Another way of looking at this is that we are moving our actions, including our thoughts, feelings and deeds, away from sin and closer to godliness. This is growth, biblically speaking.
Unsafe people don’t want to clean up their act; they want to stay close to sin. That is why it often takes a major problem to get them to address their stagnancy. Even then a person like this may only work on one issue, and not connect with the fact that they have a systemic spiritual problem. (Discuss?)
12. Act Like Heroes
Another type of unsafe person is the one who likes to be the hero, or heroine. I’ve added this one to the list, as the book does not cover this character defect. What do I mean by the word “hero”?
In this context the hero is someone that will only step up and do something so that they can be recognized as a rescuer of some kind. Some people who do this take on very dangerous jobs like hostage negotiators, or battlefield medic, or lifeguard, or an air-sea rescue person. Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here, not all people in those fields are like that, but some are. The hero is dangerous because they will let situations go on until danger appears, then they will step in to save somebody.
A simple example is this. If the normal person sees somebody struggling in a swimming pool, they will take steps to help right away. The hero will wait until the swimmer is almost drowning, then rescue him or her.
Let me give you an example of a character in Scripture who did this, but got found out! Who remembers the story of Ananias and Sapphira? Can you tell us the basics of what happened? The first part of the story is found in Acts 5:1-5:
But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and kept back some of the price for himself, with his wife's full knowledge, and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God." And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last; and great fear came over all who heard of it. NASU
Ananias wanted to be a hero, for personal glory. Has anybody had an experience with somebody like Ananias?
This is where we are going to conclude today’s lesson, and there is plenty to think about! The two things that might be good to focus on are, first, are there things that I need to look at in my life, and second, am I working to distance myself from sin in my life?
I’m actually going to start right where we left off last week. On the subject of denial, which was identified as the biggest single cause of people not working on their problems. Let me either refresh your memory, or introduce you to what was said about denial if you weren’t able to make it last week.
What is denial? Webster’s says it is, “A refusal to acknowledge the truth”.
Wikipedia says, “Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.”
There seems to be three major aspects to denial, and they are:
1. Denying the reality of the fact. This is normally what most people think of as “denial”.
2. Admit the fact, but deny the seriousness of it, we call that minimization.
3. Admit the fact and the seriousness, but deny responsibility, that is called transference or sometimes blaming others.
It is denial that is the biggest road block to getting better, it is denial that stops healing from even beginning, it is denial that puts a hand in God’s face saying “No”.
I want to hold out an example of denial to you, and to some of you this may sound somewhat critical, but please hear this as a word from my heart. Many people have been told about this study we are in, and our whole church has been informed about it since before Easter. Some of these people have received the conviction of the Holy Spirit that they ought to come and listen, to participate, to learn and to grow. It is denial of the reality of their personal needs that is stopping them from being here. Everybody here this morning has stepped out of denial and into the truth, and God will bless all of us because of it. Does anybody have any comments about this?
In 1908 a young man from Philadelphia, Frank Buchman, experienced a moment of spiritual transformation and started a mission church for the drunks and other down and outs on the streets with all he had, 17 dollars. Later, after his trustees cut his food budget, he left and went to England. While attending a religious convention in Keswick, England, he experienced a massive chasm between himself and Christ, and sensed that he needed to surrender his will. This was the moment that precipitated the formation of a group now called “The Oxford Group” at Oxford University. This group founded to promote absolute standards of honesty, purity, love and unselfishness. This group was the originator of what we now know as Alcoholics Anonymous through the workings of God through it into Bill Wilson’s life. As some of you may know, Bill W. is usually recognized as one of the founders of AA.
The point in telling you this is that the twelve steps of AA, and then every twelve step program after that were a direct result of people stepping out of denial and into the truth. The whole “recovery” movement began with the working of God in one person’s life, and that person’s obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Originally, AA was a God centered approach to the problem of addiction to alcohol, and in the early years achieved a more than 75% success rate in getting people off the bottle, and keeping them off. As the program became larger, it diluted itself, and God was replaced with the term “higher power as you know it”. The success rate is now less than 25%. Some AA people I know still call this success, but I would challenge that assessment, based on their own history. There is a lesson here, when you don’t include God in your healing process or dealing with your personal problems, you are more likely to fail. I want us to look at the twelve steps now, and we are going to use the CR at the Park brochure. (Read the steps)
Let us all see how step one shows us how to get out of denial and move into the truth in any area of our life.
“We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors; that our lives had become unmanageable.”
This is it:
1. We admit we are powerless over something.
2. We realize we can’t control ourselves in that area of our lives.
3. We understand that that part of our life is unmanageable.
It doesn’t have to be an addiction. It can be a habitual behavior; an attitude or an ungodly thought life. The point is that we have to come out of denial about a behavior, or a bad relationship, to be able to deal with it.
If, during the course of this study, you sense that the Holy Spirit is helping you see some form of denial in your life, please don’t ignore it. God doesn’t want any of us to get stuck in our lives, and nor do I. Communicate with any of us who are knowledgeable about the twelve steps, remembering to stick with your own gender of course. (Identify twelve steppers in group).
Okay, now let’s get back on track. Let’s move to the unsafe trait of “Demanding Trust”
7. Demand Trust.
Have you ever said, “Don’t you trust me”? We all have! The real underlying statement behind this is, “How dare you question my integrity!”
Let me ask an open question, does God ever ask that question? The answer is no, He never does and He never will. He does say about Himself that He is trustworthy; in fact His word says that He is the only trustworthy one. To understand this more completely we have to know that in the Jewish culture trust and truth are often interchangeable words. Remembering this, let’s look at 1 Jn 5:20:
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. NASU
This scripture identifies that God is truth; it is a characteristic of God. In the context of our study God is the ultimate trustworthy person, and He never demands trust.
What do you think we are doing when we demand trust? (We are putting ourselves above God!) So this is it, on trust. God sets the standard. He says I’m trustworthy, let my actions show it, then you can believe me. I will earn your trust.
Why do we think we can do trust better than God? We can’t! We too must earn trust, one day at a time. The floor is open to any comments or thoughts on trust.
8. Believe They Are Perfect
This character wart is sometimes difficult to hear. Perfectionism, which can also be called “the drive to project an image of being perfect”, is a big trap. When someone’s perfect little world is upset, the unsafe person will often attack others. It can even be their own children when they spill a glass of milk, or their husband when he passes gas in public. Ridiculous, I don’t think so. How about the successful businessman who trades his less than perfect wife in for a younger model? Does that sound sick? Yes, but we all know it happens.
This “I’m perfect, so everything around me must reflect it” attitude is pervasive, right here in Katy, Texas. It is so destructive for relationships. Can anybody testify about this in any way? (How about the schools?)
The single biggest issue I have with the person who acts like they are perfect is that they demand it of everybody around them. Can anybody else identify with that? When someone around me is demanding perfection because they are “perfect”, I want to be somewhere else, I get frustrated and sometimes angry as a response. This whole “perfect” thing puts distance between two people; it devalues one person in the eyes of the other and builds barriers to intimacy in important relationships.
In Rom 3:23 we get a godly perspective on this:
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, NASU
Applied in context here, it says, nobody is perfect. The person who believes they are perfect, is basically stating that they are equal to God. To maintain that high standard, they have to blame other people for all that is not right around them. This of course is why “perfect” people have few, if any, close friends, and why their marital relationships are often rocky.
9. Blame Others
The book says it so well. Safe people take responsibility for their lives, unsafe people don’t. Unsafe people will often choose to blame others, including the people they “love”, for their own problems. Sometimes they will blame God or the Devil, or even their dog for what they do. Have you ever heard these phrases “God told me to do it” or “The Devil made me do it”? Let’s look at the first time this happened. It is found in Gen 3:12-13:
The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, " The serpent deceived me, and I ate." NASU
This is what I call a ‘threefer”. It has both phrases and an extra one. God and the Devil get blamed, and so does the woman. I would say that this kind of finger pointing still happens today.
Can you see “denial” at work here? The blamer is unsafe to others around him or her, as they get the blamers problems hoisted on them. The blamer is unable and unwilling to work on getting through their own stuff
10 Lie Persistently
Why do people lie? Let’s discuss this, but first let’s remember that every one of us lies, this will allow us to retain some perspective in our discussion.
· To avoid feelings, like shame.
· To survive, or protect oneself.
· To deceive.
· For personal gain.
· Don’t want to give bad news.
· Just because I can.
· To feel important.
What do you think the downside of lying is? (Discuss) How does it play itself out in relationships? (Discuss)
I know we all understand that lying is not a morally acceptable behavior, and I am using moral in the sense of comparing our action against scriptural imperatives. But have you considered lying from this very different view. Let us see what Jesus says in Jn 8:44-45:
You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. NASU
I hope this rattles you as much as it rattled me when the meaning of this was revealed to me. What does the class think it means, on a personal level?
· That, when I lie, I have more in common with the devil than I do with the Lord.
Does that thought shock you?
The book quite rightly talks about how the safe person works on trying to correct any lying behavior that he or she does. The unsafe person, however, simply uses lying as a way to get ahead, and has no thought or intention of changing his or her ways.
I know this is easy to say and hard to do. If you are caught in a lie, either by another person or self-caught, admit it, take the consequence, and put it behind you, purposing to not do it again.
If you are the person confronting the liar, pray for an attitude of grace and forgiveness, remembering that you too have lied during your life. Be an encourager to the person trying to quit the bad habit.
If you are faced with an unrepentant liar, as far as is possible, disassociate yourself from them.
11. Are Stagnant.
Some people seem to be happy right where they are. Some Christians appear to have settled for a “no growth” or a “growth if it accidentally happens policy”. Why is this? (Discuss) Some might say a few of the following. Lazy, Too hard, Bad Experiences, No time, Not a priority, or Hedonist.
These are all excuses, not reasons. From both a worldly or spiritual perspective we are expected to grow, and we are wired for it too.
Consider what Paul has to say about personal growth. (Ph 2:12-13)
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. NASU
What does this mean to you as you hear this verse? (Discuss) We are instructed quite frequently in scripture to “clean up our act”. Those are my words; the Bible usually puts it in terms of renewal, repentance or to create a clean heart. This verse is consistent with those other commands, and it explains things a little more for us. It says we are to “work out our own salvation”, this is clear in telling us we have a part in the whole process of cleaning our selves up, spiritually speaking. That implies that nobody can do it for us, we alone are responsible. In verse 13, it tells us that God is also at work in us. This is best understood as He partners with us in the work of salvation.
The key word in all of this short passage is “salvation”. I want to make sure that we understand what Paul meant when he wrote this. Has anybody studied this passage before, and is comfortable sharing what he or she previously learned?
Salvation in this verse is not the use of the word, “salvation”, as in the moment we accept Christ, we are permanently saved. It refers to the ongoing work called sanctification, which is usually thought of as “cleaning up” our Souls. Another way of looking at this is that we are moving our actions, including our thoughts, feelings and deeds, away from sin and closer to godliness. This is growth, biblically speaking.
Unsafe people don’t want to clean up their act; they want to stay close to sin. That is why it often takes a major problem to get them to address their stagnancy. Even then a person like this may only work on one issue, and not connect with the fact that they have a systemic spiritual problem. (Discuss?)
12. Act Like Heroes
Another type of unsafe person is the one who likes to be the hero, or heroine. I’ve added this one to the list, as the book does not cover this character defect. What do I mean by the word “hero”?
In this context the hero is someone that will only step up and do something so that they can be recognized as a rescuer of some kind. Some people who do this take on very dangerous jobs like hostage negotiators, or battlefield medic, or lifeguard, or an air-sea rescue person. Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here, not all people in those fields are like that, but some are. The hero is dangerous because they will let situations go on until danger appears, then they will step in to save somebody.
A simple example is this. If the normal person sees somebody struggling in a swimming pool, they will take steps to help right away. The hero will wait until the swimmer is almost drowning, then rescue him or her.
Let me give you an example of a character in Scripture who did this, but got found out! Who remembers the story of Ananias and Sapphira? Can you tell us the basics of what happened? The first part of the story is found in Acts 5:1-5:
But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and kept back some of the price for himself, with his wife's full knowledge, and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God." And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last; and great fear came over all who heard of it. NASU
Ananias wanted to be a hero, for personal glory. Has anybody had an experience with somebody like Ananias?
This is where we are going to conclude today’s lesson, and there is plenty to think about! The two things that might be good to focus on are, first, are there things that I need to look at in my life, and second, am I working to distance myself from sin in my life?
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Personal Traits of Unsafe People (1)
Good morning to everybody. Today we are going to jump right into some of the “meat” of the book as we begin to cover the topic, “Personal Traits of Unsafe People”. This is the first of two lessons taken out of chapter two of our study book.
Before I get into the actual lesson I want to talk for a couple of minutes on the subject of how we ought to view what we are going to go through together as we progress through the book. To paint a word picture, I am going to go into Greek mythology, to the trials, which are usually called the labors, of the character known as Hercules. (His actual name was Herakles in the Greek) Hercules was the son of Zeus, the most powerful of all the Greek gods.
The story really begins when Hera, a Greek goddess, made him lose his mind. In his insanity he killed his wife and children. When he awakened, he consulted with Apollo, another Greek god, and was assigned to serve a Greek king, Eurystheus, and to perform twelve labors as punishment. After completing his sentence, he became the greatest hero in Greek legend. This was because the Greek’s raised him up as the perfect example of virtuous struggle and suffering leading to a great reward, immortality, and the highest stature among the gods. Does any of this sound familiar?
Now I’ll come to the point. One of Hercules labors was the cleaning of the stables of King Augeas. The Augean stables were home to the largest herd of cattle in the world and the cow manure was very deep, as the legend says that they had never been cleaned. Hercules was to clean them in a single day! He was resigned to the prospect of working very hard and getting very dirty and smelly during this clean up. Then he was inspired by the gods to simply dig a big trench, divert a river, and let the flowing water do the work for him. He successfully completed his task!
Why am I telling you this story? (Open class for discussion) It is because of the allegorical nature of our study. This fifth task of Hercules symbolizes the task all of us have if we are to progress in our spiritual walk. We have to clean out our own stable, which is our heart, of all the dirt and waste that it has accumulated over our lifetime. If you’ve ever had to clean up manure, you know that doesn’t smell too bad, until you break the dry crust, then you get to the bad stuff. So it is with our character defects. It is not a job that can be done in a day, or quickly. If we attempt to do it with our own strength, we will fail. But God has a way. If we dig that trench toward the river, he will send His streams of living water to clean us out.
(By this I am referring to the Holy Spirit, which Jesus describes as “streams of living water” in Jn 7:38)
In this study, we are going to uncover some of our own personal manure. If we attempt to clean it up without the river, we will fail.
Does everybody get the point? Are there any comments or questions?
Now I’m ready to get into the material. Today we are looking at the first six “Personal Traits of Unsafe People”. First though, I am going to hand out a two-sided table, which we will use for today and the next three weeks. The first two of the four weeks covers the subject of “Personal Traits”, meaning qualities related to the internal character of an individual. The second two weeks covers the topic “Interpersonal Traits”, meaning the relational aspects of the character of an individual. Our chart is a front and back chart that lists all the traits we are going to cover, both from a safe and unsafe perspective, and provides an example of a biblical character demonstrating the respective trait.
Okay then, are we ready to jump in?
1. “Have It All Together”
I believe all of us have met somebody who seems to “have it all together”. You know whom I’m talking about. He or she is on top of current news, always dresses fashionably, never gets worried or flustered, they have experienced the same things as you, only more so, or know someone who has and always have a wise word to share. This kind of person leads me to respond, usually without speaking it, with a major twinge of doubt about the image they are trying to project. I feel a kind of compassionate sadness toward them.
I want us all to think about some of the people we know or have known who are like this. What sense do you have or did you have about them and your relationship with them? Think in terms of how you responded to them or felt about them. Does anybody have a story here?
· Low level of intimacy – It is hard to feel connected to someone who won’t share his or her hardships and weaknesses with you, especially when you share yours.
· Air of superiority – A sense that they believe you need them, but they don’t need you. Or alternatively, a sense that you need them, because you are weak and they are strong. You may even idolize them.
· Weakness – You feel weaker than you really are. Your self-confidence is low when you are relating to this person.
· Anger – Being around this person seems to lead you into an angry emotional state. You may get hostile and either jeopardize or lose the relationship.
· Competitiveness – A sense of competition develops, and you search for something to outdo them on. You may buy a $400 dress after they told about their latest $300 outfit. Essentially, the relationship becomes a sophisticated fight.
· Emulation – Some responses may involve “being like them” as they “have it all together”. This could be in the actual relationship or in other relationships.
From this short list we can see the damage that a “have it all together” person can do to our self-esteem and behavior. If you are one of these “have it all together” people, you are stuck. There is no way you can progress in emotional or spiritual growth, because you believe you really have all the answers! Let’s look at a core problem for the person with this “unsafe” trait. It is found in James 5:16(a):
Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. NASU
Let us be sure to understand this verse. The context here is in the healing of the soul, not the body, which is covered three verses earlier. The Greek word here for “healed” is better translated as “make whole”. It is part of God’s plan for our relationships that we talk to one another and confess to another person our weaknesses, follow this up with prayer and then receive what ever God has for us on the issue. Spiritual growth is hard to achieve without this as part of our everyday life. A “have it all together” person has simply put a formidable barrier in his or her own life to growth. They are truly unsafe, for themselves and others.
2. Religious
What do we mean if we say someone is religious, but not spiritual? (Discuss) Have you ever met people like this? What do you think about them?
I really worry sometimes about this in my own life, about knowing so much about God and about His word that I forget that God is someone who wants me to know Him and have an intimate relationship with Him.
In Jesus last week prior to His crucifixion he spoke about this type of person, almost the whole of chapter 23 of the Gospel of Matthew is about this kind of unsafe person. We are just going to look at one of the things he said, lets read Mt 23:27-28:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. NASU
Let me ask you this. Just how unsafe were the people He was talking to? (They killed Him, I call that unsafe) Can you think of any modern individuals or groups who are like this? Unsafeness can literally be a matter of life and death.
3. Defensive
I didn’t do it! Have you ever said that? Have you ever said that when you weren’t even accused of doing “it”? If you have, you were being defensive. The problem with being this way is that it becomes a habit; it is like “shooting first and asking questions later”.
The defensive person almost always ends up turning the situation around and blaming somebody else, meaning anybody but himself or herself, for whatever has fallen in the crack. Extremely defensive people do not accept being confronted over anything.
I want to look at a piece of Scripture where a confrontation takes place, and the person involved acts in a safe way. Let’s open up to 2 Sam 12:1-15:
Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. And he came to him and said,
There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor.
The rich man had a great many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb which he bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd, to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him; rather he took the poor man's ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion." Nathan then said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel, 'It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. I also gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these! Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun. Then David said to Nathan, " I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die." So Nathan went to his house. NASU
What is this story all about? What was David’s response to being confronted? Would you have done this?
I think it is important that we connect the understanding that David is called “A man after God’s own heart” with his willingness to be confronted and being able to admit his own sin.
Defensive people, who can’t accept appropriate confrontation, are going to find it difficult to connect with God at a heart to heart level.
4. Self-Righteous
We all have a somewhat misguided need to feel “right” with everything, the world, our friends and family and for some of us, God. This is actually designed into us by God when He made the first human. He created us in His own image to relate to Him on an intimate basis. We were made to be “right” with Him. During the fall, our intimacy with our maker was shattered, and all of mankind has been searching for “rightness” ever since. It is this “hole in the soul” that drives the self-righteous person to act out of their emotions by seeking to be “right” through their own efforts. It is one of the worst examples of self-centeredness that there is, because everything is about them.
The root sin here is pride. It is the arrogant belief that you are better than everybody else. Let’s look at what Jesus said on this issue. This Scripture, Lk 18:10-14, is also found on page 32 of the book.
Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. "The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 'I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.' "But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!' "I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." NASU
The difference is clear, and I think needs no explanation.
One of the big problems with the self-righteous person is that they use shame and guilt on others. They attempt to cause others to feel “bad” about themselves in order to confirm their moral superiority. They simply cannot see that all people are equally in need of “rightness” with God, this makes them dangerous to all of us. For the record, the core issue that a self-righteous person is dealing with is “personal insecurity”.
Can anybody think some examples of public figures that come across as self-righteous?
5. Only Apologize
I want to present this to you in a different way than the book does. Let us take a look at Mk 4:3-8 and Mk 4:14-20:
Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." And He was saying, " He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
The sower sows the word. These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." NASU
When we are confronted by a situation or person about something we have done, we can respond in any one of the four ways laid out in the parable.
1. We blow it off, maybe not even trying to be sorry, let alone apologizing.
2. We enthusiastically apologize, and because we are not “rooted”, when some other issue comes up we forget about the situation and our desire to improve or change our behavior. (Ask what “rooted” means)
3. We enthusiastically apologize, intending to make changes in our behavior. Then life overtakes us so that other desires become a higher priority than personal change. Change is “crowded out”.
4. We enthusiastically apologize, and make a concerted effort to change. We persevere in this personal work making at least some of the necessary changes in our actions. Our relationships improve as the offended parties see we really are changing as a result of the exposure of our behaviors.
The underlying motivation here is love. The level of sincerity we show in our apology and follow up actions shows the people around us how much we love God, through obedience, love ourselves through working on the issue, and love others through active listening to their concerns. (Discussion)
6. Avoid Working On Problems
People who avoid working on their own stuff do this for a very specific reason. They are in what is called “denial”.
What is denial? Webster’s says it is, “A refusal to acknowledge the truth”.
Wikipedia says, “Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.”
There seems to be three major aspects to denial, and they are:
1. Denying the reality of the fact. This is normally what most people think of as “denial”.
2. Admit the fact, but deny the seriousness of it, we call that minimization.
3. Admit the fact and the seriousness, but deny responsibility, that is called transference or sometimes blaming others.
It is denial that is the biggest road block to getting better, it is denial that stops healing from even beginning, it is denial that puts a hand in God’s face saying “No”.
People in denial are not safe because the denial allows them to hurt themselves, and deny it. It also allows them to hurt others and rationalize it as not a “big deal”. It can also allow them to hurt others and blame them for the hurt!
You have all heard of the “Twelve Steps”. The admittance of personal denial is where they begin. I would like to read them from the Parkway Celebrate Recovery brochure, just so we can all be informed on this structured pathway to healing. (Look for a volunteer)
If you are dealing with denial, the Holy Spirit is talking to you about it! Listen to Him, he wants you get through something so you can get closer to the Lord. Celebrate Recovery can help with almost anything you are trying to get through, if you think this is relevant to you, if you are a man talk to me, or if you are a woman talk to my wife. You can call us, talk to us right here this morning, or e-mail us.
I’m going to stop there for today. Next week we will look at the other six personal traits of unsafe people.
Before I get into the actual lesson I want to talk for a couple of minutes on the subject of how we ought to view what we are going to go through together as we progress through the book. To paint a word picture, I am going to go into Greek mythology, to the trials, which are usually called the labors, of the character known as Hercules. (His actual name was Herakles in the Greek) Hercules was the son of Zeus, the most powerful of all the Greek gods.
The story really begins when Hera, a Greek goddess, made him lose his mind. In his insanity he killed his wife and children. When he awakened, he consulted with Apollo, another Greek god, and was assigned to serve a Greek king, Eurystheus, and to perform twelve labors as punishment. After completing his sentence, he became the greatest hero in Greek legend. This was because the Greek’s raised him up as the perfect example of virtuous struggle and suffering leading to a great reward, immortality, and the highest stature among the gods. Does any of this sound familiar?
Now I’ll come to the point. One of Hercules labors was the cleaning of the stables of King Augeas. The Augean stables were home to the largest herd of cattle in the world and the cow manure was very deep, as the legend says that they had never been cleaned. Hercules was to clean them in a single day! He was resigned to the prospect of working very hard and getting very dirty and smelly during this clean up. Then he was inspired by the gods to simply dig a big trench, divert a river, and let the flowing water do the work for him. He successfully completed his task!
Why am I telling you this story? (Open class for discussion) It is because of the allegorical nature of our study. This fifth task of Hercules symbolizes the task all of us have if we are to progress in our spiritual walk. We have to clean out our own stable, which is our heart, of all the dirt and waste that it has accumulated over our lifetime. If you’ve ever had to clean up manure, you know that doesn’t smell too bad, until you break the dry crust, then you get to the bad stuff. So it is with our character defects. It is not a job that can be done in a day, or quickly. If we attempt to do it with our own strength, we will fail. But God has a way. If we dig that trench toward the river, he will send His streams of living water to clean us out.
(By this I am referring to the Holy Spirit, which Jesus describes as “streams of living water” in Jn 7:38)
In this study, we are going to uncover some of our own personal manure. If we attempt to clean it up without the river, we will fail.
Does everybody get the point? Are there any comments or questions?
Now I’m ready to get into the material. Today we are looking at the first six “Personal Traits of Unsafe People”. First though, I am going to hand out a two-sided table, which we will use for today and the next three weeks. The first two of the four weeks covers the subject of “Personal Traits”, meaning qualities related to the internal character of an individual. The second two weeks covers the topic “Interpersonal Traits”, meaning the relational aspects of the character of an individual. Our chart is a front and back chart that lists all the traits we are going to cover, both from a safe and unsafe perspective, and provides an example of a biblical character demonstrating the respective trait.
Okay then, are we ready to jump in?
1. “Have It All Together”
I believe all of us have met somebody who seems to “have it all together”. You know whom I’m talking about. He or she is on top of current news, always dresses fashionably, never gets worried or flustered, they have experienced the same things as you, only more so, or know someone who has and always have a wise word to share. This kind of person leads me to respond, usually without speaking it, with a major twinge of doubt about the image they are trying to project. I feel a kind of compassionate sadness toward them.
I want us all to think about some of the people we know or have known who are like this. What sense do you have or did you have about them and your relationship with them? Think in terms of how you responded to them or felt about them. Does anybody have a story here?
· Low level of intimacy – It is hard to feel connected to someone who won’t share his or her hardships and weaknesses with you, especially when you share yours.
· Air of superiority – A sense that they believe you need them, but they don’t need you. Or alternatively, a sense that you need them, because you are weak and they are strong. You may even idolize them.
· Weakness – You feel weaker than you really are. Your self-confidence is low when you are relating to this person.
· Anger – Being around this person seems to lead you into an angry emotional state. You may get hostile and either jeopardize or lose the relationship.
· Competitiveness – A sense of competition develops, and you search for something to outdo them on. You may buy a $400 dress after they told about their latest $300 outfit. Essentially, the relationship becomes a sophisticated fight.
· Emulation – Some responses may involve “being like them” as they “have it all together”. This could be in the actual relationship or in other relationships.
From this short list we can see the damage that a “have it all together” person can do to our self-esteem and behavior. If you are one of these “have it all together” people, you are stuck. There is no way you can progress in emotional or spiritual growth, because you believe you really have all the answers! Let’s look at a core problem for the person with this “unsafe” trait. It is found in James 5:16(a):
Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. NASU
Let us be sure to understand this verse. The context here is in the healing of the soul, not the body, which is covered three verses earlier. The Greek word here for “healed” is better translated as “make whole”. It is part of God’s plan for our relationships that we talk to one another and confess to another person our weaknesses, follow this up with prayer and then receive what ever God has for us on the issue. Spiritual growth is hard to achieve without this as part of our everyday life. A “have it all together” person has simply put a formidable barrier in his or her own life to growth. They are truly unsafe, for themselves and others.
2. Religious
What do we mean if we say someone is religious, but not spiritual? (Discuss) Have you ever met people like this? What do you think about them?
I really worry sometimes about this in my own life, about knowing so much about God and about His word that I forget that God is someone who wants me to know Him and have an intimate relationship with Him.
In Jesus last week prior to His crucifixion he spoke about this type of person, almost the whole of chapter 23 of the Gospel of Matthew is about this kind of unsafe person. We are just going to look at one of the things he said, lets read Mt 23:27-28:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. NASU
Let me ask you this. Just how unsafe were the people He was talking to? (They killed Him, I call that unsafe) Can you think of any modern individuals or groups who are like this? Unsafeness can literally be a matter of life and death.
3. Defensive
I didn’t do it! Have you ever said that? Have you ever said that when you weren’t even accused of doing “it”? If you have, you were being defensive. The problem with being this way is that it becomes a habit; it is like “shooting first and asking questions later”.
The defensive person almost always ends up turning the situation around and blaming somebody else, meaning anybody but himself or herself, for whatever has fallen in the crack. Extremely defensive people do not accept being confronted over anything.
I want to look at a piece of Scripture where a confrontation takes place, and the person involved acts in a safe way. Let’s open up to 2 Sam 12:1-15:
Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. And he came to him and said,
There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor.
The rich man had a great many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb which he bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd, to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him; rather he took the poor man's ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion." Nathan then said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel, 'It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. I also gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these! Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun. Then David said to Nathan, " I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die." So Nathan went to his house. NASU
What is this story all about? What was David’s response to being confronted? Would you have done this?
I think it is important that we connect the understanding that David is called “A man after God’s own heart” with his willingness to be confronted and being able to admit his own sin.
Defensive people, who can’t accept appropriate confrontation, are going to find it difficult to connect with God at a heart to heart level.
4. Self-Righteous
We all have a somewhat misguided need to feel “right” with everything, the world, our friends and family and for some of us, God. This is actually designed into us by God when He made the first human. He created us in His own image to relate to Him on an intimate basis. We were made to be “right” with Him. During the fall, our intimacy with our maker was shattered, and all of mankind has been searching for “rightness” ever since. It is this “hole in the soul” that drives the self-righteous person to act out of their emotions by seeking to be “right” through their own efforts. It is one of the worst examples of self-centeredness that there is, because everything is about them.
The root sin here is pride. It is the arrogant belief that you are better than everybody else. Let’s look at what Jesus said on this issue. This Scripture, Lk 18:10-14, is also found on page 32 of the book.
Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. "The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 'I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.' "But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!' "I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." NASU
The difference is clear, and I think needs no explanation.
One of the big problems with the self-righteous person is that they use shame and guilt on others. They attempt to cause others to feel “bad” about themselves in order to confirm their moral superiority. They simply cannot see that all people are equally in need of “rightness” with God, this makes them dangerous to all of us. For the record, the core issue that a self-righteous person is dealing with is “personal insecurity”.
Can anybody think some examples of public figures that come across as self-righteous?
5. Only Apologize
I want to present this to you in a different way than the book does. Let us take a look at Mk 4:3-8 and Mk 4:14-20:
Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." And He was saying, " He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
The sower sows the word. These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." NASU
When we are confronted by a situation or person about something we have done, we can respond in any one of the four ways laid out in the parable.
1. We blow it off, maybe not even trying to be sorry, let alone apologizing.
2. We enthusiastically apologize, and because we are not “rooted”, when some other issue comes up we forget about the situation and our desire to improve or change our behavior. (Ask what “rooted” means)
3. We enthusiastically apologize, intending to make changes in our behavior. Then life overtakes us so that other desires become a higher priority than personal change. Change is “crowded out”.
4. We enthusiastically apologize, and make a concerted effort to change. We persevere in this personal work making at least some of the necessary changes in our actions. Our relationships improve as the offended parties see we really are changing as a result of the exposure of our behaviors.
The underlying motivation here is love. The level of sincerity we show in our apology and follow up actions shows the people around us how much we love God, through obedience, love ourselves through working on the issue, and love others through active listening to their concerns. (Discussion)
6. Avoid Working On Problems
People who avoid working on their own stuff do this for a very specific reason. They are in what is called “denial”.
What is denial? Webster’s says it is, “A refusal to acknowledge the truth”.
Wikipedia says, “Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.”
There seems to be three major aspects to denial, and they are:
1. Denying the reality of the fact. This is normally what most people think of as “denial”.
2. Admit the fact, but deny the seriousness of it, we call that minimization.
3. Admit the fact and the seriousness, but deny responsibility, that is called transference or sometimes blaming others.
It is denial that is the biggest road block to getting better, it is denial that stops healing from even beginning, it is denial that puts a hand in God’s face saying “No”.
People in denial are not safe because the denial allows them to hurt themselves, and deny it. It also allows them to hurt others and rationalize it as not a “big deal”. It can also allow them to hurt others and blame them for the hurt!
You have all heard of the “Twelve Steps”. The admittance of personal denial is where they begin. I would like to read them from the Parkway Celebrate Recovery brochure, just so we can all be informed on this structured pathway to healing. (Look for a volunteer)
If you are dealing with denial, the Holy Spirit is talking to you about it! Listen to Him, he wants you get through something so you can get closer to the Lord. Celebrate Recovery can help with almost anything you are trying to get through, if you think this is relevant to you, if you are a man talk to me, or if you are a woman talk to my wife. You can call us, talk to us right here this morning, or e-mail us.
I’m going to stop there for today. Next week we will look at the other six personal traits of unsafe people.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
What is a "Safe Person"?
Now I want to turn to the “Purpose, Objectives and Scriptural Basis” for this study. I am going to start by opening up the floor with this question:
· What do you hope to get out of this study?
The second sheet I’m handing out covers the purpose, objectives and basis for this study. First I want to start with the “Purpose” for the study, this is the reason that we, the teachers, are working through this with you:
Our purpose is to assist you in drawing nearer to God, getting closer to your loved ones, making you safer for others and in becoming the person that God created you to be.
There are six objectives for each of us to move toward:
1. To develop better “character discernment” skills.
2. To quickly identify “unsafe” traits in others.
3. To learn the attributes of “safe” people.
4. To honestly look at our personal characteristics.
5. To learn new tools in dealing with relationship issues.
6. To improve decision making in our personal relationships.
Are there any questions about these six? I have posted this whole lesson, including the purpose and objectives, on my class blog at kengross.blogspot.com for those that might want to review what we talk about here.
The Biblical Basis for this Study
1 Cor 15:33 – The more you associate with unsafe people, the more likely you are to become unsafe yourself.
Mt 7:3-5 – To be able to help others with whom we are relationship, we must first be able to honestly look at our own imperfections.
Rom 12:10 – It is not easy or smart to be “devoted in brotherly love” to people we cannot trust or honor because they are not safe.
Mt 7:6 – We must learn to not waste our time on relationships where our love and counsel is not appreciated or valued, our “friends” are likely to turn on us.
Rom 14:13 – Judgmentalism is an unavoidable problem; only God is able to correctly judge things. However, the more informed we become, the more discerning judgments we will make in our relationships. We will become less likely to impede our brother’s or sister’s spiritual growth, and more importantly less likely to get in God’s way.
Eph 4:32 – When we understand why our friends, acquaintances and loved ones act the way they do we are more able to forgive. God understands us perfectly.
Eph 4:14-15 – Sharing the” truth in love” is impossible if we do not know what the truth is. Studying God’s truth about relationships will make us better able to counsel others in need, and help us to not be “tossed about” by lies and deceptions.
From this list we can easily see how learning to be safe will help us on a personal basis and help others around us. I have one last Scripture to take a quick look at, Mt 22:36-40:
"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. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' " On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." NASU
We’ve talked in this class about this Scripture before; can somebody remember the essence of? (Love God, Love Yourself, Love Others.) Taking this class is doing exactly what Jesus is speaking about. By participating you are loving God by the action of the study of His word. You are loving yourself because you want to improve yourself through the understanding of the word. And you are loving others by becoming more knowledgeable about applying Scripture in your relationships.
What is an Unsafe Person?
I want to open that question up for the class, and I know we’ll all have different answers to this, but I think it is useful to hear them.
Chapter one of our book, beginning on page 21, provides us with a partial list of categories of unsafe people. I am going to briefly cover them and add one more category.
Abandoners
The book says “abandoners” are people who can start a relationship, but who can’t finish it. I have to agree that this is one of the worst types of unsafe people and there is a big reason why. Abandoners destroy trust; abandoners betray you and abandoners reject you. Our book will talk more about these things later so I’m going to just say a small amount this morning.
Abandoners are people who join you in a relationship; the two of you develop some level of bonding, then for their own reason leave you. It feels like you have been pulled into a relationship, opening your self up, and then they chew you up and spit you out once they have sucked you emotionally dry. After you have learned to rely on the abandoner, they reject you, and this leads to intense emotional pain. It is emotional pain that is often behind addictive or compulsive behaviors, or depression. Does anybody have an abandonment story that they are willing to share?
Once you get to understanding how powerful abandonment is, you can then connect with why Jesus took time to tell us He would always be with us. He says this 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
Do you recognize this statement? It is called the “great commission”, and it is part of Jesus last instruction to us before leaving. At the very end of it He tells us He will always be with us, or said another way, He will never abandon us. Why did He add this? It is in part because He knew the power of abandonment, the sense of betrayal, and the feeling of rejection that would follow could all derail the ability of His disciples to complete the task ahead.
One last point for us to reflect on. It is still true that we are commissioned to go and make disciples, and that is what we are about in this class. But when we are abandoned in our earthly relationships, it often derails our ability to serve God.
Critics
Don’t you just love those judgmental people you meet? I’m being facetious of course. The book says that critics are, “people who take a parental role with everyone they know”. There is a part of “critics” that I like, and that is why I have always been drawn to them, that is the part that helps me to see things a different way. Critics can be so good at seeing things clearly; it is what they do with that information that is the problem, and that makes them unsafe. To a certain extent, I am a critic, and I am very aware of my tendency to be this way, it is sometimes a struggle to not say something when I get the urge to. Does anybody else have a “critic” in his or her life?
Critics are much more concerned with being right than with being in a relationship. They will often unknowingly sacrifice a relationship through their judgmentalism. At their core, the critic is an extraordinarily self-centered person. And here is a tip for you about relationships with a critic. If you know someone or are developing a relationship with a person who criticizes others, remember this, your turn is coming!
We are all familiar with this passage; this is where God through Jesus is warning us to not be “critics”. From Mt 7:1-5 in the “Sermon on the Mount” He says this:
"Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. NASU
We’ll run across the hypocrite and critic more as we go through our study.
Irresponsibles
The third category of “unsafe people” is irresponsibles. The book defines these as people who don’t take care of themselves or others. These are adults who still act like children.
We all know people like this, and some of here this morning might even be feeling a twinge of conviction about our own behavior. I want to open up here and ask the class for some everyday examples of adults consistently “not taking care of themselves or others”, or behaving like children.
· Laundry, clothes thrown on the floor.
· Driving well above the speed limit or unsafely.
· Leaving late for work.
· Arriving late for church!
· Spending money you don’t have.
· Not keeping oneself clean.
· Paying bills late.
This list could go on and on. The big problem is that we all like the ability to be irresponsible; it is almost a virtue in our culture. We all like the carefree, don’t worry about anything, and how about this “God will take care of everything” attitudes that are pervasive today. This type of person costs all of us, in terms of money and time particularly. Can anyone think of some examples?
· Some people are on welfare because they won’t work.
· The erratic driver who causes a freeway wreck.
The childlike approach to life also often contributes to a life of addiction, as this irresponsible person cannot delay gratification and wants to feel good or high all the time.
When someone around us is an irresponsible, and we tolerate it, we are enabling him or her, we are adding to the problem of childlike behavior. If you are doing this for someone you love, please stop bailing him or her out. I just want to use this one scripture to point out what we ought to do. In the book of Numbers, chapter 32 we see that two of the tribes of Israel found some land they liked, and they wanted it “now”, they didn’t even want to cross the Jordan into the promised land. Moses said no, you have to go over and complete your responsibility to your brothers and to God. Let’s look at what God said through Moses in verse 23.
But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out. NASU
Moses could have enabled the irresponsibles to not fulfill their commitments; instead he pointed them toward completing their task. He said that if they chose not to then, “your sin will find you out”. What does that mean? The point here is that if we keep on bailing someone out of their irresponsible behavior, we are simply holding back the consequences of sin. One day when we are not around to help, the consequences will arrive. It is a better choice to allow the irresponsible person to receive a consequence early on and give them, and God, a chance to correct their behavior. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?
Abusers
This is not in the book. I am going to add a major category of “unsafe people”, abusers. Abusers are people that use others improperly. These are the people in your life that use you to personally gain something. Can you think of some forms of abuse that are common in our society?
· Physical.
· Sexual.
· Verbal.
· Emotional.
· Psychological.
· Spiritual.
· Neglectful.
There is something about “abuse” that we must all understand from the beginning of the study. Some abuse is physical, but all abuse is psychological. Abuse is like a war where one person is waging “Soul War” on another in order to gain something. Let me state this very clearly. All abuse is wrong! I don’t want to get into too much detail on this subject, because we will talk about it more later, but I’m willing if we have time to answer any pressing questions on this.
This is where we will conclude today. Next week we are going to start to look at the personal traits of unsafe people, this will be a two-week lesson based on chapter two of the book.
· What do you hope to get out of this study?
The second sheet I’m handing out covers the purpose, objectives and basis for this study. First I want to start with the “Purpose” for the study, this is the reason that we, the teachers, are working through this with you:
Our purpose is to assist you in drawing nearer to God, getting closer to your loved ones, making you safer for others and in becoming the person that God created you to be.
There are six objectives for each of us to move toward:
1. To develop better “character discernment” skills.
2. To quickly identify “unsafe” traits in others.
3. To learn the attributes of “safe” people.
4. To honestly look at our personal characteristics.
5. To learn new tools in dealing with relationship issues.
6. To improve decision making in our personal relationships.
Are there any questions about these six? I have posted this whole lesson, including the purpose and objectives, on my class blog at kengross.blogspot.com for those that might want to review what we talk about here.
The Biblical Basis for this Study
1 Cor 15:33 – The more you associate with unsafe people, the more likely you are to become unsafe yourself.
Mt 7:3-5 – To be able to help others with whom we are relationship, we must first be able to honestly look at our own imperfections.
Rom 12:10 – It is not easy or smart to be “devoted in brotherly love” to people we cannot trust or honor because they are not safe.
Mt 7:6 – We must learn to not waste our time on relationships where our love and counsel is not appreciated or valued, our “friends” are likely to turn on us.
Rom 14:13 – Judgmentalism is an unavoidable problem; only God is able to correctly judge things. However, the more informed we become, the more discerning judgments we will make in our relationships. We will become less likely to impede our brother’s or sister’s spiritual growth, and more importantly less likely to get in God’s way.
Eph 4:32 – When we understand why our friends, acquaintances and loved ones act the way they do we are more able to forgive. God understands us perfectly.
Eph 4:14-15 – Sharing the” truth in love” is impossible if we do not know what the truth is. Studying God’s truth about relationships will make us better able to counsel others in need, and help us to not be “tossed about” by lies and deceptions.
From this list we can easily see how learning to be safe will help us on a personal basis and help others around us. I have one last Scripture to take a quick look at, Mt 22:36-40:
"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. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' " On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." NASU
We’ve talked in this class about this Scripture before; can somebody remember the essence of? (Love God, Love Yourself, Love Others.) Taking this class is doing exactly what Jesus is speaking about. By participating you are loving God by the action of the study of His word. You are loving yourself because you want to improve yourself through the understanding of the word. And you are loving others by becoming more knowledgeable about applying Scripture in your relationships.
What is an Unsafe Person?
I want to open that question up for the class, and I know we’ll all have different answers to this, but I think it is useful to hear them.
Chapter one of our book, beginning on page 21, provides us with a partial list of categories of unsafe people. I am going to briefly cover them and add one more category.
Abandoners
The book says “abandoners” are people who can start a relationship, but who can’t finish it. I have to agree that this is one of the worst types of unsafe people and there is a big reason why. Abandoners destroy trust; abandoners betray you and abandoners reject you. Our book will talk more about these things later so I’m going to just say a small amount this morning.
Abandoners are people who join you in a relationship; the two of you develop some level of bonding, then for their own reason leave you. It feels like you have been pulled into a relationship, opening your self up, and then they chew you up and spit you out once they have sucked you emotionally dry. After you have learned to rely on the abandoner, they reject you, and this leads to intense emotional pain. It is emotional pain that is often behind addictive or compulsive behaviors, or depression. Does anybody have an abandonment story that they are willing to share?
Once you get to understanding how powerful abandonment is, you can then connect with why Jesus took time to tell us He would always be with us. He says this 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
Do you recognize this statement? It is called the “great commission”, and it is part of Jesus last instruction to us before leaving. At the very end of it He tells us He will always be with us, or said another way, He will never abandon us. Why did He add this? It is in part because He knew the power of abandonment, the sense of betrayal, and the feeling of rejection that would follow could all derail the ability of His disciples to complete the task ahead.
One last point for us to reflect on. It is still true that we are commissioned to go and make disciples, and that is what we are about in this class. But when we are abandoned in our earthly relationships, it often derails our ability to serve God.
Critics
Don’t you just love those judgmental people you meet? I’m being facetious of course. The book says that critics are, “people who take a parental role with everyone they know”. There is a part of “critics” that I like, and that is why I have always been drawn to them, that is the part that helps me to see things a different way. Critics can be so good at seeing things clearly; it is what they do with that information that is the problem, and that makes them unsafe. To a certain extent, I am a critic, and I am very aware of my tendency to be this way, it is sometimes a struggle to not say something when I get the urge to. Does anybody else have a “critic” in his or her life?
Critics are much more concerned with being right than with being in a relationship. They will often unknowingly sacrifice a relationship through their judgmentalism. At their core, the critic is an extraordinarily self-centered person. And here is a tip for you about relationships with a critic. If you know someone or are developing a relationship with a person who criticizes others, remember this, your turn is coming!
We are all familiar with this passage; this is where God through Jesus is warning us to not be “critics”. From Mt 7:1-5 in the “Sermon on the Mount” He says this:
"Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. NASU
We’ll run across the hypocrite and critic more as we go through our study.
Irresponsibles
The third category of “unsafe people” is irresponsibles. The book defines these as people who don’t take care of themselves or others. These are adults who still act like children.
We all know people like this, and some of here this morning might even be feeling a twinge of conviction about our own behavior. I want to open up here and ask the class for some everyday examples of adults consistently “not taking care of themselves or others”, or behaving like children.
· Laundry, clothes thrown on the floor.
· Driving well above the speed limit or unsafely.
· Leaving late for work.
· Arriving late for church!
· Spending money you don’t have.
· Not keeping oneself clean.
· Paying bills late.
This list could go on and on. The big problem is that we all like the ability to be irresponsible; it is almost a virtue in our culture. We all like the carefree, don’t worry about anything, and how about this “God will take care of everything” attitudes that are pervasive today. This type of person costs all of us, in terms of money and time particularly. Can anyone think of some examples?
· Some people are on welfare because they won’t work.
· The erratic driver who causes a freeway wreck.
The childlike approach to life also often contributes to a life of addiction, as this irresponsible person cannot delay gratification and wants to feel good or high all the time.
When someone around us is an irresponsible, and we tolerate it, we are enabling him or her, we are adding to the problem of childlike behavior. If you are doing this for someone you love, please stop bailing him or her out. I just want to use this one scripture to point out what we ought to do. In the book of Numbers, chapter 32 we see that two of the tribes of Israel found some land they liked, and they wanted it “now”, they didn’t even want to cross the Jordan into the promised land. Moses said no, you have to go over and complete your responsibility to your brothers and to God. Let’s look at what God said through Moses in verse 23.
But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out. NASU
Moses could have enabled the irresponsibles to not fulfill their commitments; instead he pointed them toward completing their task. He said that if they chose not to then, “your sin will find you out”. What does that mean? The point here is that if we keep on bailing someone out of their irresponsible behavior, we are simply holding back the consequences of sin. One day when we are not around to help, the consequences will arrive. It is a better choice to allow the irresponsible person to receive a consequence early on and give them, and God, a chance to correct their behavior. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?
Abusers
This is not in the book. I am going to add a major category of “unsafe people”, abusers. Abusers are people that use others improperly. These are the people in your life that use you to personally gain something. Can you think of some forms of abuse that are common in our society?
· Physical.
· Sexual.
· Verbal.
· Emotional.
· Psychological.
· Spiritual.
· Neglectful.
There is something about “abuse” that we must all understand from the beginning of the study. Some abuse is physical, but all abuse is psychological. Abuse is like a war where one person is waging “Soul War” on another in order to gain something. Let me state this very clearly. All abuse is wrong! I don’t want to get into too much detail on this subject, because we will talk about it more later, but I’m willing if we have time to answer any pressing questions on this.
This is where we will conclude today. Next week we are going to start to look at the personal traits of unsafe people, this will be a two-week lesson based on chapter two of the book.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The Universal and Hidden Barriers to Spiritual Growth for a Christian
Good morning and welcome to class on this first weekend after Easter. As you all know we will be starting our next topical study on April 6th, so we have a spare week to fill in. I have prepared a “special lesson” for us this morning, and have given it the grand title of:
“Universal and hidden barriers to spiritual growth of a Christian”
Let me say that again. Let’s pick this apart a little so that we all know what I’m going to be covering today.
· Universal – This means that every person, believer or non-believer, faces these barriers.
· Hidden – We can’t sense them in any way, in our natural state. (What do I mean by that?)
· Barriers – Something that gets in the way of progress.
· Spiritual Growth of a Christian – Progress in becoming more Christ like.
Sounds like a mystery, doesn’t it? This morning I want to demystify it for all of us. First, though, I think it would be good to simply list some barriers to spiritual growth for Christians. Let’s try to use some actual examples we have seen in our, or other’s, lives.
· No prayer life.
· Don’t study the Word.
· Fellowship with unbelievers.
· Other gods; like materialism or leisure.
· Not attending church.
· Ungodly spouse.
· Compulsive behaviors or addictions.
· Inappropriate relationships.
· Worry.
· Distractions. (Discuss)
This is a big list, and I am experimenting this morning to see if anybody comes up with any of the hidden barriers I am about to discuss. (State whether we did or didn’t)
These are the hidden barriers, and although we might be able to identify more, I am going to contend that it is these three that hold up our growth more than any other:
· Values
· Beliefs
· Attitudes
Can anybody identify what characteristics these three have in common? I’m looking for one big common characteristic, common to every person.
· Change over time.
· Change minute by minute.
· Related to one another.
· THE BIG ONE – They are characteristics of the HEART!
Our Scripture has many things to say about the heart, and there is one verse that captures the “hidden barrier” concept well. It is Jer 17:9:
The heart is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick; who can understand it? NASU
This is a statement that is directed at all people. Contextually God, speaking through Jeremiah, is addressing the apostate nation of Israel whose heart has turned away from believing and trusting God. This demonstrates the “universal” nature of the problem within the heart, that it applies to all people, believer or non-believer.
Here we see that God is trying to help understand that our values, beliefs and attitudes are hidden in our heart and because they are hidden, they will deceive us. Now let’s move on to looking at these three in detail, starting with “values”.
Values
I want to start this subject by asking everybody to list 20 values, just kidding. Let ask ourselves this question though:
· What are my values, and where do they come from? (Discuss for a minute)
(Make sure “worldly sources” are discussed, like school, TV, Internet, work)
Now let’s narrow down our value statements by clarifying what a value is, and as usual I look to my trusty Webster’s dictionary, a value is:
A principle, standard or quality regarded as worthwhile or desirable.
What is it about this thing called “values” that causes them to be a hidden barrier? I’m going to open this question up because we need to get to the answer, as all of us battle with this. (Open for discussion)
If we look at this small section from the “Sermon on the Mount” we might get a clue as to what God wants us to understand. Mt 6:5-6 says:
When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. NASU
What is Jesus telling us here? That the people praying on the corner are not praying to meet a value they say they have, they are praying for the adoration of men, a different value. What do we call this? Hypocrisy!
The sin of hypocrisy is one of the reasons that God has called our heart sick, and as the great physician he knows what we need to heal it. I am going to have us look at the greatest value statement of all time, which, if we take it on as some of our values will help our hearts to become well. It is found in Mt 22:36-40:
"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. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' " On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." NASU
In a nutshell here it is; Love God, Love Yourself, Love Others. In that order and priority. I included verse 40, which says, “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets”. We must not miss this point. Jesus gave us the values, and He added the extra point to tell the Jews, and now us through the written word, that everything depends on these values. Don’t be confused by the word “commandment”, Jesus was telling us to value God above all things, then value ourselves and others after that, and demonstrate it through love.
Everything we do, everything we think, and everything we feel can be tested against these three values. Take your mind back to what you have done over the last twenty-four hours, have you been meeting the standard set by these values?
A challenge for all of us is to search our hearts and look to see if we are using the values God Himself had written down for us, or do we use something else. There is a wonderful Psalm that looks at this whole subject of are we using God’s values or are we using values from “worldly sources”. In Psalm 119 we find an extensive look at the results of using ungodly values, and how much less our life is because of it. It seems to me that if we could all run our lives with God’s values screening our thoughts, feelings and actions, we might enjoy a more joyful and peaceful life. I want to quote just two verses from this chapter 119 of Psalms, the first is verse 105:
Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path. NASU
This verse captures what I’m saying, God’s word, which contains God’s values, shows you the right road to travel on.
The second is verse 11:
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. NIV
This, to me, says it all, what does it say to you about values?
Now I’m going to move on to beliefs.
Beliefs
Beliefs are enormously powerful. It is beliefs that enable a suicide bomber to commit his or her act, it is beliefs that enable one person to discriminate against another, and it is beliefs that are the key to eternal life. So what exactly is a belief? Webster’s dictionary says this, a belief is:
A mental acceptance of or conviction in the truth or actuality of something.
When the dictionary speaks of “mental acceptance”, it is using a secular term that is better understood as “psychological” by us. This means that the belief is accepted somewhere inside the Soul. There is a familiar passage of scripture that identifies exactly where. Romans 10:9-10
That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. NASU
Clear as a sunny day, “with the heart a person believes”.
What is it about beliefs that are hidden and dangerous? Much like our values, we get our beliefs from a variety of sources. Some of us might believe that a certain presidential candidate can “save us”, where does that belief come from? The things we read, TV, people we listen to, the Internet, even in church! As these worldly opinions get allowed into our Soul, they slowly cement in as new beliefs, we can’t even tell when and how it is happening. We just “know” that we believe a certain thing to be true.
Our hidden beliefs are demonstrated in our actions. Can you think of some examples of a hidden belief being exposed? Let’s try to identify what the hidden belief might be.
· Not praying about something.
· Driving while intoxicated.
· Having an affair.
· Not coming to church on time.
How do we deal with these secret beliefs? It is really very straightforward; we test them against the truth! For example if we believe it is acceptable to drive at 80 mph on the Katy freeway, we might have a police officer test that against the truth for us!
Every human acts in accordance with his or her beliefs, hidden or not. As Christians, this presents a challenge. When we act in accordance with our beliefs, but against the truth, the Holy Spirit convicts us. God can see our hidden beliefs, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And if they are not truthful beliefs, He wants us to correct them.
I want to say a little on conviction. The Holy Spirit will always convict us, that is part of His role. It is us who do not listen, it is us who listens but chooses to ignore and it is us who simply disobeys.
The remedy for dealing with our hidden beliefs is therefore the truth, and where can we find that? In Jn 14:6 Jesus says this:
I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. NASU
If you want the truth go to Jesus!
Attitudes
Did anybody arrive today with a “tude”? If you don’t admit it, you are fooling yourself; we all have attitudes, all the time. Webster’s dictionary says an attitude is:
“A state of mind or feeling”.
Are we always aware of our attitudes? Of course not! Is our attitude a constant and consistent thing? Of course not! Do we display our attitudes? All the time! Can you think of some examples of where hidden attitudes come out?
· Driving!
· When we snap at someone.
· Sarcasm.
· Some of our thoughts.
Does God have anything to say about attitude? He does, I just enjoy the absolute direct and simple way He communicates about this. In the book of Jeremiah, chapter 12, the first two lines of verse 3 capture it:
But You know me, O Lord; You see me; And You examine my heart's attitude toward You. NASU
God states here that he knows us, sees us, and examines the attitude in the Heart. Have you ever thought about having your attitudes examined? It is really a scary proposition. What if your spouse or co-worker knew exactly how you were feeling toward them at every moment? It could produce some interesting conversations!
What can be done about these hidden attitudes? This is a little difficult to pin down, but I think we can find a clue in the following scripture. Ph 2:3-5 seems to help us understand what we ought to do about them, it says:
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. NASU
The antidote to malevolent hidden attitudes is humility. Why do you think this might be so? It is because the hidden attitudes are the ones that involve “self”, such as:
· I’m more important than him or her.
· I know more about this than him or her.
· I deserve this more than him or her.
· I’m a better person than him or her.
I think that hits the point home, these are all prideful statements.
Let me summarize what we have covered this morning. There are three major hidden barriers to personal spiritual growth, and our God provides a remedy for each of these sicknesses.
· Values, studying the scripture helps deal with this.
· Beliefs, knowing the truth combats hidden beliefs.
· Attitudes, learning humility is the answer.
That concludes our lesson for today, next week we kick off “Safe People”.
“Universal and hidden barriers to spiritual growth of a Christian”
Let me say that again. Let’s pick this apart a little so that we all know what I’m going to be covering today.
· Universal – This means that every person, believer or non-believer, faces these barriers.
· Hidden – We can’t sense them in any way, in our natural state. (What do I mean by that?)
· Barriers – Something that gets in the way of progress.
· Spiritual Growth of a Christian – Progress in becoming more Christ like.
Sounds like a mystery, doesn’t it? This morning I want to demystify it for all of us. First, though, I think it would be good to simply list some barriers to spiritual growth for Christians. Let’s try to use some actual examples we have seen in our, or other’s, lives.
· No prayer life.
· Don’t study the Word.
· Fellowship with unbelievers.
· Other gods; like materialism or leisure.
· Not attending church.
· Ungodly spouse.
· Compulsive behaviors or addictions.
· Inappropriate relationships.
· Worry.
· Distractions. (Discuss)
This is a big list, and I am experimenting this morning to see if anybody comes up with any of the hidden barriers I am about to discuss. (State whether we did or didn’t)
These are the hidden barriers, and although we might be able to identify more, I am going to contend that it is these three that hold up our growth more than any other:
· Values
· Beliefs
· Attitudes
Can anybody identify what characteristics these three have in common? I’m looking for one big common characteristic, common to every person.
· Change over time.
· Change minute by minute.
· Related to one another.
· THE BIG ONE – They are characteristics of the HEART!
Our Scripture has many things to say about the heart, and there is one verse that captures the “hidden barrier” concept well. It is Jer 17:9:
The heart is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick; who can understand it? NASU
This is a statement that is directed at all people. Contextually God, speaking through Jeremiah, is addressing the apostate nation of Israel whose heart has turned away from believing and trusting God. This demonstrates the “universal” nature of the problem within the heart, that it applies to all people, believer or non-believer.
Here we see that God is trying to help understand that our values, beliefs and attitudes are hidden in our heart and because they are hidden, they will deceive us. Now let’s move on to looking at these three in detail, starting with “values”.
Values
I want to start this subject by asking everybody to list 20 values, just kidding. Let ask ourselves this question though:
· What are my values, and where do they come from? (Discuss for a minute)
(Make sure “worldly sources” are discussed, like school, TV, Internet, work)
Now let’s narrow down our value statements by clarifying what a value is, and as usual I look to my trusty Webster’s dictionary, a value is:
A principle, standard or quality regarded as worthwhile or desirable.
What is it about this thing called “values” that causes them to be a hidden barrier? I’m going to open this question up because we need to get to the answer, as all of us battle with this. (Open for discussion)
If we look at this small section from the “Sermon on the Mount” we might get a clue as to what God wants us to understand. Mt 6:5-6 says:
When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. NASU
What is Jesus telling us here? That the people praying on the corner are not praying to meet a value they say they have, they are praying for the adoration of men, a different value. What do we call this? Hypocrisy!
The sin of hypocrisy is one of the reasons that God has called our heart sick, and as the great physician he knows what we need to heal it. I am going to have us look at the greatest value statement of all time, which, if we take it on as some of our values will help our hearts to become well. It is found in Mt 22:36-40:
"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. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' " On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." NASU
In a nutshell here it is; Love God, Love Yourself, Love Others. In that order and priority. I included verse 40, which says, “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets”. We must not miss this point. Jesus gave us the values, and He added the extra point to tell the Jews, and now us through the written word, that everything depends on these values. Don’t be confused by the word “commandment”, Jesus was telling us to value God above all things, then value ourselves and others after that, and demonstrate it through love.
Everything we do, everything we think, and everything we feel can be tested against these three values. Take your mind back to what you have done over the last twenty-four hours, have you been meeting the standard set by these values?
A challenge for all of us is to search our hearts and look to see if we are using the values God Himself had written down for us, or do we use something else. There is a wonderful Psalm that looks at this whole subject of are we using God’s values or are we using values from “worldly sources”. In Psalm 119 we find an extensive look at the results of using ungodly values, and how much less our life is because of it. It seems to me that if we could all run our lives with God’s values screening our thoughts, feelings and actions, we might enjoy a more joyful and peaceful life. I want to quote just two verses from this chapter 119 of Psalms, the first is verse 105:
Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path. NASU
This verse captures what I’m saying, God’s word, which contains God’s values, shows you the right road to travel on.
The second is verse 11:
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. NIV
This, to me, says it all, what does it say to you about values?
Now I’m going to move on to beliefs.
Beliefs
Beliefs are enormously powerful. It is beliefs that enable a suicide bomber to commit his or her act, it is beliefs that enable one person to discriminate against another, and it is beliefs that are the key to eternal life. So what exactly is a belief? Webster’s dictionary says this, a belief is:
A mental acceptance of or conviction in the truth or actuality of something.
When the dictionary speaks of “mental acceptance”, it is using a secular term that is better understood as “psychological” by us. This means that the belief is accepted somewhere inside the Soul. There is a familiar passage of scripture that identifies exactly where. Romans 10:9-10
That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. NASU
Clear as a sunny day, “with the heart a person believes”.
What is it about beliefs that are hidden and dangerous? Much like our values, we get our beliefs from a variety of sources. Some of us might believe that a certain presidential candidate can “save us”, where does that belief come from? The things we read, TV, people we listen to, the Internet, even in church! As these worldly opinions get allowed into our Soul, they slowly cement in as new beliefs, we can’t even tell when and how it is happening. We just “know” that we believe a certain thing to be true.
Our hidden beliefs are demonstrated in our actions. Can you think of some examples of a hidden belief being exposed? Let’s try to identify what the hidden belief might be.
· Not praying about something.
· Driving while intoxicated.
· Having an affair.
· Not coming to church on time.
How do we deal with these secret beliefs? It is really very straightforward; we test them against the truth! For example if we believe it is acceptable to drive at 80 mph on the Katy freeway, we might have a police officer test that against the truth for us!
Every human acts in accordance with his or her beliefs, hidden or not. As Christians, this presents a challenge. When we act in accordance with our beliefs, but against the truth, the Holy Spirit convicts us. God can see our hidden beliefs, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And if they are not truthful beliefs, He wants us to correct them.
I want to say a little on conviction. The Holy Spirit will always convict us, that is part of His role. It is us who do not listen, it is us who listens but chooses to ignore and it is us who simply disobeys.
The remedy for dealing with our hidden beliefs is therefore the truth, and where can we find that? In Jn 14:6 Jesus says this:
I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. NASU
If you want the truth go to Jesus!
Attitudes
Did anybody arrive today with a “tude”? If you don’t admit it, you are fooling yourself; we all have attitudes, all the time. Webster’s dictionary says an attitude is:
“A state of mind or feeling”.
Are we always aware of our attitudes? Of course not! Is our attitude a constant and consistent thing? Of course not! Do we display our attitudes? All the time! Can you think of some examples of where hidden attitudes come out?
· Driving!
· When we snap at someone.
· Sarcasm.
· Some of our thoughts.
Does God have anything to say about attitude? He does, I just enjoy the absolute direct and simple way He communicates about this. In the book of Jeremiah, chapter 12, the first two lines of verse 3 capture it:
But You know me, O Lord; You see me; And You examine my heart's attitude toward You. NASU
God states here that he knows us, sees us, and examines the attitude in the Heart. Have you ever thought about having your attitudes examined? It is really a scary proposition. What if your spouse or co-worker knew exactly how you were feeling toward them at every moment? It could produce some interesting conversations!
What can be done about these hidden attitudes? This is a little difficult to pin down, but I think we can find a clue in the following scripture. Ph 2:3-5 seems to help us understand what we ought to do about them, it says:
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. NASU
The antidote to malevolent hidden attitudes is humility. Why do you think this might be so? It is because the hidden attitudes are the ones that involve “self”, such as:
· I’m more important than him or her.
· I know more about this than him or her.
· I deserve this more than him or her.
· I’m a better person than him or her.
I think that hits the point home, these are all prideful statements.
Let me summarize what we have covered this morning. There are three major hidden barriers to personal spiritual growth, and our God provides a remedy for each of these sicknesses.
· Values, studying the scripture helps deal with this.
· Beliefs, knowing the truth combats hidden beliefs.
· Attitudes, learning humility is the answer.
That concludes our lesson for today, next week we kick off “Safe People”.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Christian Principles Underlying Love and Respect
Welcome to the last lesson of our “Love and Respect” series. Today we are going to do a more conventional study of scripture, and see how it applies to our few weeks in the Love and Respect study. We are going to look at seven basic truths about how to conduct ourselves in the Christian life, and apply them directly to being more loving and respectful.
The passage of Scripture we are going to look at has been sometimes called the seven virtues of Christianity, amongst other things. It is really a list of things to work on for a believer throughout his or her lifetime. Let’s look at the Scripture, 1 Pet 1:5-8:
Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. NASU
First let’s look at the beginning of this set of verses. Right before this the Apostle Peter says, and I am going to paraphrase it, “Because of what Jesus did, you can take part in His divineness, and this is how you do it”. Then he begins verse five. In that he says, “applying all diligence, in your faith supply”, what does that interesting phrase say to us? (Open to class)
The Message, a modern paraphrase of the Bible, says it in a well expressed fashion:
So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith. (The Message)
The idea here is that we are to acknowledge that we have a basic belief in Jesus and what He has done for all of us (faith), and because of that we ought to get on with what Peter is about to tell us. There are seven things that Peter identifies for us, let’s list them:
· Moral Excellence
· Knowledge.
· Self-control.
· Perseverance.
· Godliness.
· Brotherly Kindness.
· Love.
We’ll look at these seven virtues or Christian principles in a moment, but first we need to see the point of why we ought to do these things. In verse 8 Peter tells us by using a double negative, that these qualities will lead us into Christian fruitfulness and a deeper knowledge of Christ. To me that sounds like something worth going after.
Now it is time to get to the meat of our lesson, the seven virtues. I am going to look at these in the context of “Love and Respect”.
Moral Excellence
This is sometimes translated as goodness, or virtue in other versions than the one I typically use. What does the class think this might mean? For a further clue let us take a quick look at Ph 4:8-9:
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. NASU
This gives us a flavor of what Peter was meaning when he said “moral excellence”. My personal take on this is that he is talking about having courage in applying and improving on the strength of godly character that we show in our daily lives.
In terms of “Love and Respect” it means we are to put in every effort to be loving and respectful, as we are instructed to in Eph 5:33. It further means that we are to do this regardless of what the other person in the relationship says or does. That takes courage and strength.
Knowledge
What do you think Peter might have been getting at when he puts this second in the sequence of virtues? (Open to class)
This is a uniquely Judeo-Christian virtue, although the flowering of knowledge as we know it only began a few hundred years ago, and was only found in the Christian world. I think if we think a little about it, we might see that Peter is directing our thoughts to seeking knowledge from God. There are many verses about knowledge in the book of Proverbs, but I think the essence of Peter’s message can be found in these two. Pr 1:7 and 2:5:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction. NASU
Then you will discern the fear of the Lord, and discover the knowledge of God. NASU
From these two verses what kind of knowledge is Peter talking about? (The knowledge of God) What does that mean? It is not the knowledge about God; it is not knowing God, because Peter’s audience already knew God. He is talking about the knowledge that comes from God through the Holy Spirit. And we know where that starts don’t we? The fear of the Lord, or for our purposes, the awestruck respect of the Lord. Communing with the Holy Spirit is usually accomplished through prayer and meditation, and so if we want to receive knowledge from God, that is what we will need to do.
Our context is Love and Respect. So this is going to be simple to say. If you want to love or respect someone it is wise to seek counsel from God directly through prayer and meditation. Allow God to help you acquire His knowledge on the best way to love or respect someone. This is one of those times when we can pray, “change me” instead of “change him or her”. I can’t emphasize this enough; God is way more disposed in helping you become a more mature person, than he is in helping you by answering a self-serving prayer to change another person for you. Any thoughts?
Self-Control
Does anybody here this morning want to skip this one? Just kidding!
The KJV uses a wonderful word here, temperance. Did you know that a whole worldwide ministry was built around this concept of temperance? It began in England and was originally called the “Gospel Temperance Army”, and their focus was on getting a legal prohibition of alcohol by saving one person at a time. Do you know what ministry I’m talking about? That’s right “The Salvation Army”.
I know that was a bit of a divergence, but it illustrates the idea that I think Peter was trying to convey. That is the idea that we need to seek God, to help us be self-controlled. The temperance army focused only on alcohol consumption, but Peter wants us to consider universal or complete self-control.
In our context this morning, we are to consider how we are to conduct ourselves in our efforts to be loving or respectful. If things aren’t going how we thought they should, are we under self-control? Or, are we hopping mad that he or she is not responding in a textbook fashion? Or are we upset that God hasn’t brought them to their knees, because they deserve it? Or are we not trusting God? Do you recall that in our previous study we learned that God is in control in the big picture sense, but we are in control of how we conduct our lives? It is when we put our self-control under His authority that we can truly exercise our love or our respect.
Perseverance
We all have a good idea of what this means, it sort of says “keep on, keeping on”, doesn’t it? Webster’s dictionary has a very good and appropriate definition:
The steadfast adherence to a course of action, belief or purpose.
For those church historians among you, perseverance is one of the five doctrines of Calvinism (Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints). I am telling you this to help us to understand that this virtue is a big deal in the Christian life. Let us look at why this might be so, our direction on how to view this is found in Rom 5:1-5:
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. NASU
What is the Apostle Paul saying to us here? (Class input) In verse one and two we see a statement that basically says “since we have been made right with God by Jesus, we are now under His grace and live in the confident expectation that we will have the glory of God in our lives.” Then we get to my point.
Verses 3 through 5, lay out the purpose and importance of perseverance. The Living Bible has an excellent paraphrase:
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us-they help us learn to be patient. And patience develops strength of character in us and helps us trust God more each time we use it until finally our hope and faith are strong and steady. Then, when that happens, we are able to hold our heads high no matter what happens and know that all is well, for we know how dearly God loves us, and we feel this warm love everywhere within us because God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. TLB
In this paraphrase perseverance is translated as “patience”, but the Greek word here is “hupomone”, which means “cheerful endurance”, and that is a better way of describing the virtue. The point here is that the difficulties which we all face will lead to us developing perseverance, and God’s intent is that it refines our character, builds our faith and connects us more closely with the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes when we are trying to love or respect our partner, it is a trial or we might even say a tribulation. God says to us to persevere, and he will use this to improve our own character. So even if you don’t feel or think that something is happening in your relationship, it is happening in you! The implication is this. If you don’t keep going in your efforts to love or respect, even if the other person is not responding, you will lose the opportunity to have your character improved by God!
Godliness
One commentary has an excellent description of what Godliness means, but before I read it let us hear from the class on some of the things we think might be included in this small word.
Piety toward God; a deep, reverential, religious fear; not only worshipping God with every becoming outward act, but adoring, loving, and magnifying him in the heart: (from Adam Clarke's Commentary)
This is such a good picture of what being godly is all about. If we start to apply it to love and respect what kind of things can we say?
God’s word says to love and respect, with no conditions. If we are to express “godliness” then we would obey, wouldn’t we? According to the definition provided providing unconditional love or respect is an act of worship, do you agree with that? (Open up) What is the opposite, not providing unconditional love and respect? It is self-worship, as you would be saying that your ways are higher than God’s ways.
Brotherly Kindness
We have talked about “brotherly love” a couple of times in our study, can anybody recall the Greek word used for this or how we have described it in our lessons? Phileo is the Greek, and we have defined as a deep sense of affection for another person.
The word used in the original language here is a special extension, it is “Philadelphia”, and is best translated as “Love for the Brothers”, meaning all fellow Christians. This is one of those generic uses of the masculine word (brother) that covers both males and females. It implies that we are to develop a special affection, displayed through friendships, for our fellow believers. Rom 12:10 clearly identifies this for us:
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; NASU
Paul uses the same Greek word here for brotherly love (Philadelphia), and tells us to give preference to one another.
If there is such a thing as giving more preference to someone, should it not be toward those we are to love and respect? I think that we might do well to consider this as a very specific instruction to become friends with those we are to love and respect, even if we don’t feel like it! This particular virtue reminds us of the fifth men’s need described in our book, “Shoulder-to-shoulder friendship”.
Love
This last virtue is the ultimate virtue, it is what we have looked at before and identified as “Agape” love. The willful action of unconditional and sacrificial love toward someone. In fact Jesus made this virtue the very definition of a Christ follower in Jn 13:34-35:
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." NASU
I suppose the simplest way to look at this in terms of love and respect is this. If you act in a loving and respectful manner, you are acting as a Christ follower, if you don’t, then you are not acting as a Christ follower.
I hope that we can all see the power of scripture displayed today when we took a piece of God’s word and applied it to our study. Our Bible is truly amazing and alive.
That is it for our series!
The passage of Scripture we are going to look at has been sometimes called the seven virtues of Christianity, amongst other things. It is really a list of things to work on for a believer throughout his or her lifetime. Let’s look at the Scripture, 1 Pet 1:5-8:
Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. NASU
First let’s look at the beginning of this set of verses. Right before this the Apostle Peter says, and I am going to paraphrase it, “Because of what Jesus did, you can take part in His divineness, and this is how you do it”. Then he begins verse five. In that he says, “applying all diligence, in your faith supply”, what does that interesting phrase say to us? (Open to class)
The Message, a modern paraphrase of the Bible, says it in a well expressed fashion:
So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith. (The Message)
The idea here is that we are to acknowledge that we have a basic belief in Jesus and what He has done for all of us (faith), and because of that we ought to get on with what Peter is about to tell us. There are seven things that Peter identifies for us, let’s list them:
· Moral Excellence
· Knowledge.
· Self-control.
· Perseverance.
· Godliness.
· Brotherly Kindness.
· Love.
We’ll look at these seven virtues or Christian principles in a moment, but first we need to see the point of why we ought to do these things. In verse 8 Peter tells us by using a double negative, that these qualities will lead us into Christian fruitfulness and a deeper knowledge of Christ. To me that sounds like something worth going after.
Now it is time to get to the meat of our lesson, the seven virtues. I am going to look at these in the context of “Love and Respect”.
Moral Excellence
This is sometimes translated as goodness, or virtue in other versions than the one I typically use. What does the class think this might mean? For a further clue let us take a quick look at Ph 4:8-9:
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. NASU
This gives us a flavor of what Peter was meaning when he said “moral excellence”. My personal take on this is that he is talking about having courage in applying and improving on the strength of godly character that we show in our daily lives.
In terms of “Love and Respect” it means we are to put in every effort to be loving and respectful, as we are instructed to in Eph 5:33. It further means that we are to do this regardless of what the other person in the relationship says or does. That takes courage and strength.
Knowledge
What do you think Peter might have been getting at when he puts this second in the sequence of virtues? (Open to class)
This is a uniquely Judeo-Christian virtue, although the flowering of knowledge as we know it only began a few hundred years ago, and was only found in the Christian world. I think if we think a little about it, we might see that Peter is directing our thoughts to seeking knowledge from God. There are many verses about knowledge in the book of Proverbs, but I think the essence of Peter’s message can be found in these two. Pr 1:7 and 2:5:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction. NASU
Then you will discern the fear of the Lord, and discover the knowledge of God. NASU
From these two verses what kind of knowledge is Peter talking about? (The knowledge of God) What does that mean? It is not the knowledge about God; it is not knowing God, because Peter’s audience already knew God. He is talking about the knowledge that comes from God through the Holy Spirit. And we know where that starts don’t we? The fear of the Lord, or for our purposes, the awestruck respect of the Lord. Communing with the Holy Spirit is usually accomplished through prayer and meditation, and so if we want to receive knowledge from God, that is what we will need to do.
Our context is Love and Respect. So this is going to be simple to say. If you want to love or respect someone it is wise to seek counsel from God directly through prayer and meditation. Allow God to help you acquire His knowledge on the best way to love or respect someone. This is one of those times when we can pray, “change me” instead of “change him or her”. I can’t emphasize this enough; God is way more disposed in helping you become a more mature person, than he is in helping you by answering a self-serving prayer to change another person for you. Any thoughts?
Self-Control
Does anybody here this morning want to skip this one? Just kidding!
The KJV uses a wonderful word here, temperance. Did you know that a whole worldwide ministry was built around this concept of temperance? It began in England and was originally called the “Gospel Temperance Army”, and their focus was on getting a legal prohibition of alcohol by saving one person at a time. Do you know what ministry I’m talking about? That’s right “The Salvation Army”.
I know that was a bit of a divergence, but it illustrates the idea that I think Peter was trying to convey. That is the idea that we need to seek God, to help us be self-controlled. The temperance army focused only on alcohol consumption, but Peter wants us to consider universal or complete self-control.
In our context this morning, we are to consider how we are to conduct ourselves in our efforts to be loving or respectful. If things aren’t going how we thought they should, are we under self-control? Or, are we hopping mad that he or she is not responding in a textbook fashion? Or are we upset that God hasn’t brought them to their knees, because they deserve it? Or are we not trusting God? Do you recall that in our previous study we learned that God is in control in the big picture sense, but we are in control of how we conduct our lives? It is when we put our self-control under His authority that we can truly exercise our love or our respect.
Perseverance
We all have a good idea of what this means, it sort of says “keep on, keeping on”, doesn’t it? Webster’s dictionary has a very good and appropriate definition:
The steadfast adherence to a course of action, belief or purpose.
For those church historians among you, perseverance is one of the five doctrines of Calvinism (Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints). I am telling you this to help us to understand that this virtue is a big deal in the Christian life. Let us look at why this might be so, our direction on how to view this is found in Rom 5:1-5:
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. NASU
What is the Apostle Paul saying to us here? (Class input) In verse one and two we see a statement that basically says “since we have been made right with God by Jesus, we are now under His grace and live in the confident expectation that we will have the glory of God in our lives.” Then we get to my point.
Verses 3 through 5, lay out the purpose and importance of perseverance. The Living Bible has an excellent paraphrase:
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us-they help us learn to be patient. And patience develops strength of character in us and helps us trust God more each time we use it until finally our hope and faith are strong and steady. Then, when that happens, we are able to hold our heads high no matter what happens and know that all is well, for we know how dearly God loves us, and we feel this warm love everywhere within us because God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. TLB
In this paraphrase perseverance is translated as “patience”, but the Greek word here is “hupomone”, which means “cheerful endurance”, and that is a better way of describing the virtue. The point here is that the difficulties which we all face will lead to us developing perseverance, and God’s intent is that it refines our character, builds our faith and connects us more closely with the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes when we are trying to love or respect our partner, it is a trial or we might even say a tribulation. God says to us to persevere, and he will use this to improve our own character. So even if you don’t feel or think that something is happening in your relationship, it is happening in you! The implication is this. If you don’t keep going in your efforts to love or respect, even if the other person is not responding, you will lose the opportunity to have your character improved by God!
Godliness
One commentary has an excellent description of what Godliness means, but before I read it let us hear from the class on some of the things we think might be included in this small word.
Piety toward God; a deep, reverential, religious fear; not only worshipping God with every becoming outward act, but adoring, loving, and magnifying him in the heart: (from Adam Clarke's Commentary)
This is such a good picture of what being godly is all about. If we start to apply it to love and respect what kind of things can we say?
God’s word says to love and respect, with no conditions. If we are to express “godliness” then we would obey, wouldn’t we? According to the definition provided providing unconditional love or respect is an act of worship, do you agree with that? (Open up) What is the opposite, not providing unconditional love and respect? It is self-worship, as you would be saying that your ways are higher than God’s ways.
Brotherly Kindness
We have talked about “brotherly love” a couple of times in our study, can anybody recall the Greek word used for this or how we have described it in our lessons? Phileo is the Greek, and we have defined as a deep sense of affection for another person.
The word used in the original language here is a special extension, it is “Philadelphia”, and is best translated as “Love for the Brothers”, meaning all fellow Christians. This is one of those generic uses of the masculine word (brother) that covers both males and females. It implies that we are to develop a special affection, displayed through friendships, for our fellow believers. Rom 12:10 clearly identifies this for us:
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; NASU
Paul uses the same Greek word here for brotherly love (Philadelphia), and tells us to give preference to one another.
If there is such a thing as giving more preference to someone, should it not be toward those we are to love and respect? I think that we might do well to consider this as a very specific instruction to become friends with those we are to love and respect, even if we don’t feel like it! This particular virtue reminds us of the fifth men’s need described in our book, “Shoulder-to-shoulder friendship”.
Love
This last virtue is the ultimate virtue, it is what we have looked at before and identified as “Agape” love. The willful action of unconditional and sacrificial love toward someone. In fact Jesus made this virtue the very definition of a Christ follower in Jn 13:34-35:
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." NASU
I suppose the simplest way to look at this in terms of love and respect is this. If you act in a loving and respectful manner, you are acting as a Christ follower, if you don’t, then you are not acting as a Christ follower.
I hope that we can all see the power of scripture displayed today when we took a piece of God’s word and applied it to our study. Our Bible is truly amazing and alive.
That is it for our series!
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Love & Respect - His Needs (Part 2 of 2)
Good morning and welcome to Lesson 8, the penultimate lesson, in our “Love and Respect” series. Today is the second of two lessons on the subject of “His Needs”. Last week we covered the subjects from chapters 16, 17 and 18 of our book, which were Conquest, Hierarchy and Authority. This week we are in chapters 19, 20 and 21, whose subjects are Insight, Relationship and Sexuality.
I want to start with a reminder about the simple question I asked us to all consider last week. Do you believe God? Did anybody get a chance to reflect on it over the last week? (Discuss)
In the lesson last week we talked about the fact that although the book calls what we are studying “Men’s Needs”, they are really better thought of as “Men’s Designer Parts”. Put into each man by God’s design. These parts are to be used primarily for the benefit of the man and his family. Then secondarily for his work and his social life, such as church.
Also from our discussion last week we identified three objectives for these two lessons. They are:
· Understand and acknowledge that God has laid out His design for a man in His word.
· Be honest in your attempts to accept what He says a man needs.
· Seek Him and His power to overcome the social and cultural barriers that have been placed in your Mind, Heart and Will over your lifetime, so that you can accept God’s design for a man
Now I think we are ready to tackle these last three, beginning with “Insight”.
Insight
The author says that men have “insight”, what exactly does he mean? (Open to the class) He calls it an ability to analyze and counsel. To me the author is trying to convey how men use this feature of their makeup rather than explain what “Insight” really is. Analyzing is breaking things down into their smallest parts and seeing how they are made up. Counseling is then provided as guidance on a course of action based on the analysis.
Just for fun, can anybody tell us when men do this the most? Here is a clue, “When women talk to men about their day, or their problems, what is the typical response of the man?” To fix it! Which is short for analyze and counsel.
So the author is right, men do indeed do this. I think there is more to this than he put into this chapter, and I want to take a short look at my sense of what “Insight” is.
Webster’s says this:
Insight is “the capacity to discern the true nature of a situation”.
I like that definition, and I like it a lot. Let me read it again. Does anybody have a comment on this definition versus what the book focuses on? If you write in your books like I do you might want to write the definition on page 227, the opening page of chapter 19.
There are two key words in this definition, and you should probably put a circle around them, for memory jogging purposes. These words are “discern” and “true”. Let look at why they are important.
Discern or Discernment – I look at this from two points of view. There is the natural and supernatural. In the natural sense, men have been given an ability to figure things out, to connect the dots, to analyze. This ability applies to all men, whatever their status is, Christian or not, single or married, red, black, white or yellow, it doesn’t matter, it is designed in.
The supernatural. This is a key spiritual issue in understanding how we must relate to each other as Christians, how we relate to non-believers and most importantly how we relate to those close to us. I want to take a look at 1 Cor 2:14-16:
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ. NASU
This short set of verses could be a whole lesson by itself, so I’m just going to focus on what is relevant to us in looking at how God designed the man. In the original Greek, verses 14 and 15 use the word “anakrino” three times. In our various Bible versions here, it is translated “discerned”, “appraised” or “judged”. The practical application for us is that there are some situations where we, that is believers, are given spiritual discernment. That is discernment with the aid of the Holy Spirit. Natural men, non-believers, who do not understand it, describe this discernment as “foolishness”.
In the context of looking at a man, and how he is designed, ladies might benefit from remembering what we are about to discuss. A man is designed to be able to figure things out, to analyze or discern. If the man is also a Christian, having the Holy Spirit within, he has an added dimension of discernment available.
Let us look at a situation. An event has occurred, and a man and a woman are dealing with it.
· The man is in a peaceful, thoughtful, and relaxed state, able to look at what is going on rationally. He may or may not be in a spiritual frame of mind.
· The woman is upset, is carrying resentment about what is happening, she is acting in a natural way. She is definitely not feeling the Spirit!
What ever the man decides through his discernment is likely to be a reasonably good judgment of what the situation actually is, and how to deal with it. The woman is likely to think that his choice and advice is nonsense, and since she is the emotionally charged up one, she may choose to ignore the man’s insight.
The point here is that, ladies, it is very unwise to dismiss the man’s insight; you could actually be dismissing God’s insight, which He gave the man!
Men, don’t go getting puffed up about this. It works in reverse too! Only when women are given the help of the Holy Spirit we call it intuition! The ladies may not be able to tell you in logical steps or be able to explain how they “know” something. They just do. It is wise for us as men to listen and consider their “intuition” in any situation.
What is the healthiest circumstance is where the man’s insight and the woman’s intuition come to the same or similar conclusion about a problem or situation.
I also want to say a couple of words about the truth, and I am referring back to our definition of insight. If we do our best to operate in the Spirit, or paying attention to God, we are more likely to experience a true discernment, or a true intuition, because God is truth!
Now let’s take a short look at some of the downside to women not appreciating men’s insight, or ability to analyze and counsel.
· Alienation. It is possible to push the man away from you through not accepting his help. He is actually loving you when he attempts to “fix it”. It is okay to let him go forward with what you consider a bad choice if it is not going to cause harm to himself, you or others. Men learn from their mistakes reasonably well. I do acknowledge that some men just don’t get “some things”, but it is well to remember that it is not “all things”. Of course an obviously bad choice does need to be stopped before damage is done. Minimize your rejections of his ideas and you will maximize the love generated through his desire to get things done.
· Pain. It may not occur to women, but you can produce a response of emotional pain if you reject his insight. He is built for insight and expects to give it, and if he is frequently denied the opportunity to give insight, his unspoken expectations are not met. Resentments and pain will follow. The most common way we deal with this in our culture is to not share it, but stuff it. This is then followed by an attempt by the man to release the pain somehow. This could easily come out in the form of an addiction, such as drinking, work, pornography or gambling.
· Communication. Just as we have said in the previous three “needs”, shutting down this part of his design will inevitably result in a slowing down or possibly stopping of communication. He will go from being “open” to being “closed”.
That is enough on “insight”, but before we move on is there anything relating to this subject that somebody would like to discuss?
Relationship
For this part of our lesson I am going to use visuals.
1. First I need two ladies with their chairs. Okay ladies take your chair and sit on it so that you can talk to the other one. Now quietly chat with each other, and we’ll observe.
2. Ok thanks, now let’s have two men with their chairs. Men, sit like you would if you were fishing from a bass boat, and talk about something. We will observe.
3. Third visual; a married couple. Take your chairs and sit like you would at a restaurant if you were 18 and dating. We’ll observe while you chat.
4. Now for the “piece de resistance”. My specially chosen couple, who will depict a more mature, and I use that word loosely, older married couple.
Ok class, give them all a hand! What did we see?
1. The ladies sat face to face, so that they could see each other while they connected.
2. The men connected with their backs to each other.
3. The dating couple sat almost on top of one another, next to each other to achieve the maximum possible connection.
4. There is nothing I can say! This couple was avoiding connection.
The bottom line is that when men connected the most positively they were not looking at whom they were with.
Our book calls this “his desire for shoulder-to-shoulder friendship.” The man achieves companionship when he is doing something and not directly connecting like the two women did in our demonstration. In fact let us see what it looks like to have two men sit opposite each other. (Get two guys with chairs to sit face to face for a moment.)
When men sit opposite each other it is a possible conflict, and subconsciously they will attempt to avoid it!
So, ladies think about it, when you want the man to achieve connection, sit next to him while he or you, or both of you, are doing something. Talking is not a requirement!
There is a Scripture that might help us understand that this is a Godly action on the part of the wife. Titus 2:3-5:
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. NASU
This says that older women are to teach younger women to love their husbands. There is a single word in the original Greek used for the English phrase “love their husbands”, it is “philandros”. It is from the two basic words “philos” friend of, and “aner” man. It is also where we get the term “philanderer”, meaning a person who has casual love affairs, from. The older women are to help the younger ones become friends to their husbands.
Why do we think that is laid out so plainly for us all to see? (Get input) It is because after the initial romantic excitement has worn off it is easy to get discouraged as a wife. Becoming friends is the antidote to discouragement.
Now it is time for a trip to the downside. Not doing this ladies, risks the relationship.
· Quality Time. One of the ingredients in a successful relationship is the amount of connecting time the man and woman have with each other. When a man is doing something with another person, he is connecting. If the ladies ignore or otherwise don’t participate in some of his activities, a great loss of relationship occurs. Always remember that he doesn’t have to talk to connect! Try going fly-fishing or bowling or to action movies with him. You may not be interested in the activity, but he will be connecting in his way with you. And I’ll bet he will suggest going to some of the things you like to do, things like quilting shows, ballet and chick flicks. It is not so much about what you are doing; it is more about doing fun things together.
· Alternative relationships. If the woman doesn’t want to go do some of “his things”, he will most likely find someone who will. That may not be safe for your relationship!
· Communication. I know I’m harping on this, but if you are not being his recreational companion, you lower the available time to simply talk.
Are there any more thoughts on this subject? If not we can move on to the reason everybody came this morning. It is time to talk sex.
Sexuality
This is a surprise to all of us; men are designed with a propensity to want sex! Of course we all know that, and we are constantly reminded of it through our culture. I’ll open the class up right here for examples of “sex” messages we get delivered to us on a routine basis.
· Sex sells.
· Get as much as you can.
· Women “need” sex as much as men.
· Homosexual sex is acceptable.
It seems to me that even if sex is not part of a conversation or a story, that people try to throw it in there somewhere. My lovely wife and I have become more aware of this lately, and recently watched a movie called “The Rock”. There is a scene where the hero and his girlfriend are having sex on the roof of their building, and he gets a phone call. She says don’t stop, he says its my phone, it is important, and he answers it. How ridiculous! Public sex, on a rooftop for all to see, and he answers the phone in the middle of it. This was the only sex scene in the movie and it was completely unnecessary, it actually detracted from the story, but they had to put something in to titillate us viewers.
The point here is that sex has been taken from its actual purpose to a lower purpose by the culture. What might I mean by that? (Open to class) There are two basic reasons sex or sexual activity exists.
· Procreation, be fruitful and multiply. (Gen 1:28)
· Relationship. (Gen 2:24)
While it is almost impossible for the world to get rid of the need to procreate, it is working hard on it through stem cell research and in-vitro science. The objective of course is to be able to produce children without random parents, resulting in a sort of man-made human evolution. More importantly our culture and indeed the whole world is trying hard to eliminate the sex and relationship purpose. This is where we need to focus today.
In Gen 2:24 it is said that man is to leave his home, his father and mother, and to “cleave”, and become “one flesh”. I know we have all heard this taught or preached on at some point, but I want us to connect this verse with our “man need”.
Let us look at this passage in its total context. Gen 2:21-25:
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib, which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said," This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. NASU
Notice the sequence of events. The man is put to sleep by the Lord. God takes a rib out of the man, and makes the woman. The Lord brings the woman to the man, he names her “woman” because she was taken out of man. And this last phrase is key to understanding and acknowledging God’s design for a man.
Verse 24 says “for this reason”, meaning because she was taken out of man, the man leaves and cleaves. This is very symbolic prose in these verses and we have to be sure to pick up what God is telling us in this whole passage. So here it is.
In verse 2:21 God takes a “tsela”, which always seems to be translated as rib in our Bibles, from the man. Its actual meaning is “side of”, which implies more than just a rib. The man confirms this when he says in verse 23, she is bone of my bones and flesh of may flesh, indicating that she is part of him.
God could have gone off and made a woman from the dust, just like he did all the animals and the man. But he didn’t! Can you guess why? It is because he wanted the man and woman to have a unique connection, not found in any other relationship with other “made beings”. So that when the cleaving goes on it is a Soul connection, which is then cemented by the physical connection of becoming one flesh. Part of this physical connection is what we know of as sex.
In Gen 2:24 it is the man who is told to leave, and cleave and become one flesh. This shows us that God designed into the man the requirement to have sex with his wife. We tend to think of it as a “need”, but it is not. It is an obligation that the man has designed into him by God for the purpose of connecting with his wife.
We, all of us, who live in this world have taken this design, with all its benefits, and twisted it into something it was never meant to be.
As I have been doing with the other “needs” I am going to look at the downside of not handling the man’s built in design for sex well.
· Connection. Sex is a way that a man connects with his wife, it is not the only way, but it is a significant thing. If the ladies could try to always remember that the man is often reaching out to you when he wants to have sex. I know that in some cases it doesn’t seem that way, but that is because something else is wrong between the two people involved.
· Emotional well-being. For a man, having sex with his wife results, in a relatively normal marriage, in a sense of well-being. A feeling that things are right with the world. The guy connects with the wife, and they share this act together, the relationship just seems okay. He doesn’t have to have sex at all times, just enough to feel good. Each couple will determine their desirable frequency so that this sense of well-being and connection is generally present.
· Communication. No sex means negative messages are sent. Not enough sex could do the same. What would be the negative message? How about “I don’t care about you”. Never ever use sex as a weapon against your man. You may win a battle, but you will lose the war, because he won’t forget what you did!
Any last points to discuss, before we wrap up?
That is it for today. Next week we will be finishing our series with an overview lesson, and I will be teaching it.
I want to start with a reminder about the simple question I asked us to all consider last week. Do you believe God? Did anybody get a chance to reflect on it over the last week? (Discuss)
In the lesson last week we talked about the fact that although the book calls what we are studying “Men’s Needs”, they are really better thought of as “Men’s Designer Parts”. Put into each man by God’s design. These parts are to be used primarily for the benefit of the man and his family. Then secondarily for his work and his social life, such as church.
Also from our discussion last week we identified three objectives for these two lessons. They are:
· Understand and acknowledge that God has laid out His design for a man in His word.
· Be honest in your attempts to accept what He says a man needs.
· Seek Him and His power to overcome the social and cultural barriers that have been placed in your Mind, Heart and Will over your lifetime, so that you can accept God’s design for a man
Now I think we are ready to tackle these last three, beginning with “Insight”.
Insight
The author says that men have “insight”, what exactly does he mean? (Open to the class) He calls it an ability to analyze and counsel. To me the author is trying to convey how men use this feature of their makeup rather than explain what “Insight” really is. Analyzing is breaking things down into their smallest parts and seeing how they are made up. Counseling is then provided as guidance on a course of action based on the analysis.
Just for fun, can anybody tell us when men do this the most? Here is a clue, “When women talk to men about their day, or their problems, what is the typical response of the man?” To fix it! Which is short for analyze and counsel.
So the author is right, men do indeed do this. I think there is more to this than he put into this chapter, and I want to take a short look at my sense of what “Insight” is.
Webster’s says this:
Insight is “the capacity to discern the true nature of a situation”.
I like that definition, and I like it a lot. Let me read it again. Does anybody have a comment on this definition versus what the book focuses on? If you write in your books like I do you might want to write the definition on page 227, the opening page of chapter 19.
There are two key words in this definition, and you should probably put a circle around them, for memory jogging purposes. These words are “discern” and “true”. Let look at why they are important.
Discern or Discernment – I look at this from two points of view. There is the natural and supernatural. In the natural sense, men have been given an ability to figure things out, to connect the dots, to analyze. This ability applies to all men, whatever their status is, Christian or not, single or married, red, black, white or yellow, it doesn’t matter, it is designed in.
The supernatural. This is a key spiritual issue in understanding how we must relate to each other as Christians, how we relate to non-believers and most importantly how we relate to those close to us. I want to take a look at 1 Cor 2:14-16:
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ. NASU
This short set of verses could be a whole lesson by itself, so I’m just going to focus on what is relevant to us in looking at how God designed the man. In the original Greek, verses 14 and 15 use the word “anakrino” three times. In our various Bible versions here, it is translated “discerned”, “appraised” or “judged”. The practical application for us is that there are some situations where we, that is believers, are given spiritual discernment. That is discernment with the aid of the Holy Spirit. Natural men, non-believers, who do not understand it, describe this discernment as “foolishness”.
In the context of looking at a man, and how he is designed, ladies might benefit from remembering what we are about to discuss. A man is designed to be able to figure things out, to analyze or discern. If the man is also a Christian, having the Holy Spirit within, he has an added dimension of discernment available.
Let us look at a situation. An event has occurred, and a man and a woman are dealing with it.
· The man is in a peaceful, thoughtful, and relaxed state, able to look at what is going on rationally. He may or may not be in a spiritual frame of mind.
· The woman is upset, is carrying resentment about what is happening, she is acting in a natural way. She is definitely not feeling the Spirit!
What ever the man decides through his discernment is likely to be a reasonably good judgment of what the situation actually is, and how to deal with it. The woman is likely to think that his choice and advice is nonsense, and since she is the emotionally charged up one, she may choose to ignore the man’s insight.
The point here is that, ladies, it is very unwise to dismiss the man’s insight; you could actually be dismissing God’s insight, which He gave the man!
Men, don’t go getting puffed up about this. It works in reverse too! Only when women are given the help of the Holy Spirit we call it intuition! The ladies may not be able to tell you in logical steps or be able to explain how they “know” something. They just do. It is wise for us as men to listen and consider their “intuition” in any situation.
What is the healthiest circumstance is where the man’s insight and the woman’s intuition come to the same or similar conclusion about a problem or situation.
I also want to say a couple of words about the truth, and I am referring back to our definition of insight. If we do our best to operate in the Spirit, or paying attention to God, we are more likely to experience a true discernment, or a true intuition, because God is truth!
Now let’s take a short look at some of the downside to women not appreciating men’s insight, or ability to analyze and counsel.
· Alienation. It is possible to push the man away from you through not accepting his help. He is actually loving you when he attempts to “fix it”. It is okay to let him go forward with what you consider a bad choice if it is not going to cause harm to himself, you or others. Men learn from their mistakes reasonably well. I do acknowledge that some men just don’t get “some things”, but it is well to remember that it is not “all things”. Of course an obviously bad choice does need to be stopped before damage is done. Minimize your rejections of his ideas and you will maximize the love generated through his desire to get things done.
· Pain. It may not occur to women, but you can produce a response of emotional pain if you reject his insight. He is built for insight and expects to give it, and if he is frequently denied the opportunity to give insight, his unspoken expectations are not met. Resentments and pain will follow. The most common way we deal with this in our culture is to not share it, but stuff it. This is then followed by an attempt by the man to release the pain somehow. This could easily come out in the form of an addiction, such as drinking, work, pornography or gambling.
· Communication. Just as we have said in the previous three “needs”, shutting down this part of his design will inevitably result in a slowing down or possibly stopping of communication. He will go from being “open” to being “closed”.
That is enough on “insight”, but before we move on is there anything relating to this subject that somebody would like to discuss?
Relationship
For this part of our lesson I am going to use visuals.
1. First I need two ladies with their chairs. Okay ladies take your chair and sit on it so that you can talk to the other one. Now quietly chat with each other, and we’ll observe.
2. Ok thanks, now let’s have two men with their chairs. Men, sit like you would if you were fishing from a bass boat, and talk about something. We will observe.
3. Third visual; a married couple. Take your chairs and sit like you would at a restaurant if you were 18 and dating. We’ll observe while you chat.
4. Now for the “piece de resistance”. My specially chosen couple, who will depict a more mature, and I use that word loosely, older married couple.
Ok class, give them all a hand! What did we see?
1. The ladies sat face to face, so that they could see each other while they connected.
2. The men connected with their backs to each other.
3. The dating couple sat almost on top of one another, next to each other to achieve the maximum possible connection.
4. There is nothing I can say! This couple was avoiding connection.
The bottom line is that when men connected the most positively they were not looking at whom they were with.
Our book calls this “his desire for shoulder-to-shoulder friendship.” The man achieves companionship when he is doing something and not directly connecting like the two women did in our demonstration. In fact let us see what it looks like to have two men sit opposite each other. (Get two guys with chairs to sit face to face for a moment.)
When men sit opposite each other it is a possible conflict, and subconsciously they will attempt to avoid it!
So, ladies think about it, when you want the man to achieve connection, sit next to him while he or you, or both of you, are doing something. Talking is not a requirement!
There is a Scripture that might help us understand that this is a Godly action on the part of the wife. Titus 2:3-5:
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. NASU
This says that older women are to teach younger women to love their husbands. There is a single word in the original Greek used for the English phrase “love their husbands”, it is “philandros”. It is from the two basic words “philos” friend of, and “aner” man. It is also where we get the term “philanderer”, meaning a person who has casual love affairs, from. The older women are to help the younger ones become friends to their husbands.
Why do we think that is laid out so plainly for us all to see? (Get input) It is because after the initial romantic excitement has worn off it is easy to get discouraged as a wife. Becoming friends is the antidote to discouragement.
Now it is time for a trip to the downside. Not doing this ladies, risks the relationship.
· Quality Time. One of the ingredients in a successful relationship is the amount of connecting time the man and woman have with each other. When a man is doing something with another person, he is connecting. If the ladies ignore or otherwise don’t participate in some of his activities, a great loss of relationship occurs. Always remember that he doesn’t have to talk to connect! Try going fly-fishing or bowling or to action movies with him. You may not be interested in the activity, but he will be connecting in his way with you. And I’ll bet he will suggest going to some of the things you like to do, things like quilting shows, ballet and chick flicks. It is not so much about what you are doing; it is more about doing fun things together.
· Alternative relationships. If the woman doesn’t want to go do some of “his things”, he will most likely find someone who will. That may not be safe for your relationship!
· Communication. I know I’m harping on this, but if you are not being his recreational companion, you lower the available time to simply talk.
Are there any more thoughts on this subject? If not we can move on to the reason everybody came this morning. It is time to talk sex.
Sexuality
This is a surprise to all of us; men are designed with a propensity to want sex! Of course we all know that, and we are constantly reminded of it through our culture. I’ll open the class up right here for examples of “sex” messages we get delivered to us on a routine basis.
· Sex sells.
· Get as much as you can.
· Women “need” sex as much as men.
· Homosexual sex is acceptable.
It seems to me that even if sex is not part of a conversation or a story, that people try to throw it in there somewhere. My lovely wife and I have become more aware of this lately, and recently watched a movie called “The Rock”. There is a scene where the hero and his girlfriend are having sex on the roof of their building, and he gets a phone call. She says don’t stop, he says its my phone, it is important, and he answers it. How ridiculous! Public sex, on a rooftop for all to see, and he answers the phone in the middle of it. This was the only sex scene in the movie and it was completely unnecessary, it actually detracted from the story, but they had to put something in to titillate us viewers.
The point here is that sex has been taken from its actual purpose to a lower purpose by the culture. What might I mean by that? (Open to class) There are two basic reasons sex or sexual activity exists.
· Procreation, be fruitful and multiply. (Gen 1:28)
· Relationship. (Gen 2:24)
While it is almost impossible for the world to get rid of the need to procreate, it is working hard on it through stem cell research and in-vitro science. The objective of course is to be able to produce children without random parents, resulting in a sort of man-made human evolution. More importantly our culture and indeed the whole world is trying hard to eliminate the sex and relationship purpose. This is where we need to focus today.
In Gen 2:24 it is said that man is to leave his home, his father and mother, and to “cleave”, and become “one flesh”. I know we have all heard this taught or preached on at some point, but I want us to connect this verse with our “man need”.
Let us look at this passage in its total context. Gen 2:21-25:
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib, which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said," This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. NASU
Notice the sequence of events. The man is put to sleep by the Lord. God takes a rib out of the man, and makes the woman. The Lord brings the woman to the man, he names her “woman” because she was taken out of man. And this last phrase is key to understanding and acknowledging God’s design for a man.
Verse 24 says “for this reason”, meaning because she was taken out of man, the man leaves and cleaves. This is very symbolic prose in these verses and we have to be sure to pick up what God is telling us in this whole passage. So here it is.
In verse 2:21 God takes a “tsela”, which always seems to be translated as rib in our Bibles, from the man. Its actual meaning is “side of”, which implies more than just a rib. The man confirms this when he says in verse 23, she is bone of my bones and flesh of may flesh, indicating that she is part of him.
God could have gone off and made a woman from the dust, just like he did all the animals and the man. But he didn’t! Can you guess why? It is because he wanted the man and woman to have a unique connection, not found in any other relationship with other “made beings”. So that when the cleaving goes on it is a Soul connection, which is then cemented by the physical connection of becoming one flesh. Part of this physical connection is what we know of as sex.
In Gen 2:24 it is the man who is told to leave, and cleave and become one flesh. This shows us that God designed into the man the requirement to have sex with his wife. We tend to think of it as a “need”, but it is not. It is an obligation that the man has designed into him by God for the purpose of connecting with his wife.
We, all of us, who live in this world have taken this design, with all its benefits, and twisted it into something it was never meant to be.
As I have been doing with the other “needs” I am going to look at the downside of not handling the man’s built in design for sex well.
· Connection. Sex is a way that a man connects with his wife, it is not the only way, but it is a significant thing. If the ladies could try to always remember that the man is often reaching out to you when he wants to have sex. I know that in some cases it doesn’t seem that way, but that is because something else is wrong between the two people involved.
· Emotional well-being. For a man, having sex with his wife results, in a relatively normal marriage, in a sense of well-being. A feeling that things are right with the world. The guy connects with the wife, and they share this act together, the relationship just seems okay. He doesn’t have to have sex at all times, just enough to feel good. Each couple will determine their desirable frequency so that this sense of well-being and connection is generally present.
· Communication. No sex means negative messages are sent. Not enough sex could do the same. What would be the negative message? How about “I don’t care about you”. Never ever use sex as a weapon against your man. You may win a battle, but you will lose the war, because he won’t forget what you did!
Any last points to discuss, before we wrap up?
That is it for today. Next week we will be finishing our series with an overview lesson, and I will be teaching it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)