What is the "Search for Significance"?

Good morning and welcome to class. Today we begin our new study, “The Search for Significance” and it is now expected to run from today until December 14th, with a one-week break on Thanksgiving weekend. We have covered many books and had some healthy and productive discussions about what scripture has to say about us as people and how we relate to one another. This study, in my opinion, is going to be the single most important one we have ever done. If this doesn’t impact you and how you think about yourself in a major way, I will be surprised.

I want to start by asking the open question, “What is the Search for Significance”? (Discuss) I believe the best answer to this question can be discovered by first looking at Adam, the man, and his situation as he was created. Then we will see what God did for him with the giving of Eve, the woman. After that we can look at what happened in the garden, and see what the results of the choices and actions involved were. Then our question will be answered.

I want to start with one of the most poetic Psalms there is, let us read the whole of Psalm 8. Now let us reread just verse 4:

What is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him? NASU

What is God, through David who wrote this, saying in this verse? (Discuss) Does anyone have the KJV; it uses a different, and more enlightening, word in the place of the active verb “care”. It is translated “visit”. I think this verse speaks to us about how important we are. It says that God thinks of us constantly and is always with us, because He visits us. I believe that this is one of the seemingly obscure references to the Holy Spirit found in the Old Testament. Let us keep all this in mind as we unwind the meaning of the search.

I am going to assume that we are all familiar with the account of creation found in Genesis 1, with further details provided about the creation of man and woman in Genesis 2. So I only want to highlight a couple of points for our use today.

First, in Gen 1:27, God says:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. NASU

We were created on the sixth day, we were the last being created, and we were the only being made in God’s image. Next we look at Gen 2:7, it says:

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. NASU

This says that we were not created from nothing, but we were made from other things God had created previously, and that when we were made, God breathed life into us. When the Scripture talks about God’s breath it is referring to the Holy Spirit. So this act of “breathing life into us” by God is the moment he gave us a Soul with a live spirit, and that is why the word says “and man became a living being”. Next let’s look at Gen 2:18, 21, 22 and 25.

Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." (18) NASU

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. (21-22) NASU

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (25)
NASU

God saw that it was not good for the man to be on his own, so he made the woman out of his side. The Hebrew word translated here as rib is “tsela”, pronounced, “tsay-law”, and is better translated as a side of the body, meaning both flesh and bone. This indicates a “designed in” intimacy, as they were “one flesh” from the beginning. Finally when the word says they were naked and not ashamed it means that they were totally innocent (naked and didn’t know it) and secure in whom they were (not ashamed). From back in chapter 1 we also know that God would spend time with them in the garden as they learned about the world He had created for them, directly from Him, from Him in the physical sense. (Ask if the implication of this is apparent, it was Jesus Himself that was present there!) Everything was in order, they were in a right and intimate relationship on a person-to-person basis with God and were secure in Him and because of all these things they knew they were important to Him.

As described in Genesis chapter 3, in steps the serpent, and you all know the story. He tricked the woman into disobeying God, the man then made a free choice to follow in this disobedience. The pair of them lost their innocence, they lost their security, they lost their intimacy with God, they lost the person-to-person relationship and therefore they lost their sense of importance.

From that day on all mankind has been on a quest. A quest to recapture what they lost. A quest to find the sense of importance they lost that infamous day. A quest to regain the knowledge and feeling that we have real value, which our culture calls self-worth or self-esteem. That is what we are calling “The Search For Significance”. Does anybody have any questions about this, it is fundamentally important that we all grasp this point.

I want to point out now what God says the “search” we are on looks like from His perspective, and this is not in the book. Let’s look at Isa 53:6:

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. NASU

This is from that amazing piece of Scripture, Isaiah chapter 53, which prophesies about Jesus so vividly. For me this is one of those rich verses that is often overlooked during a typical Bible study. We are not going to do that today.

First I think we can all agree that this verse identifies that it refers to all of mankind, there are no exceptions. Then it speaks very loudly to us when it says “like sheep”, it tells us that from God’s perspective we look like sheep. He, God, is not talking about how we look; he is addressing how we act. To Him we act like sheep! To gain a better perspective and understanding of what God sees, let’s look at how sheep behave.

Does anybody have thoughts on how sheep behave?

· Mostly they tend to stay where they are put, with the herd.
· When they do drift, they wander aimlessly, and end up out of the sight and security of the herd, becoming unprotected.
· When scared they run in all different directions, and can become lost.
· When unsupervised they follow a few select herd members, even if that means running off a cliff.
· They will follow a shepherd who uses his voice to guide them and soothe them in times of uncertainty, but they will still ignore the shepherd when it suits them.

I don’t know if we can all agree, but I think that is a good description of how humans behave too! These things are some of what God sees in all humans. Our verse describes this behavior as “each of us has turned to his own way”.

So God sees our “search” as though we are sheep who have wandered from the safety and security of the supervision of the shepherd, and are looking for him. We are sheep who need to regain their status with the shepherd as loved and cherished individuals. Does anybody have anything to add?

Let’s now move on to the central tenet of the book, which is found in chapter 2.

The author lays out a basic theory for us in chapter two when he says that in our fallen state we all attempt to get our sense of importance, our significance, from two inappropriate sources. Can anybody remember what the author said they were? Yes, they are; the approval of others and our personal performance. He gives us a simple equation to consider, it can be found on page 21:

· Self-Worth = Performance + Others Opinions

The author correctly identifies this as a lie of Satan. When we start to believe this lie, as we all do to one extent or another, it leads us into thoughts, feelings and actions that hurt us. The rest of our study breaks this lie down into its component pieces and shows us God’s solution to the problem of the false beliefs generated by this lie.

This is where I want to end the lesson today, are there any thoughts, observations or questions that someone might have?

Now I want to talk a little about the devotional for those that are going to go through it. First, please commit to finishing what you start. It will only take a few minutes each day for 60 days. Second, if something interesting strikes you in this daily journal, please choose to share it in class. Lastly, be disciplined as much as possible by doing it one day at a time, and allow the Holy Spirit to touch your heart as you work through it.

That’s it for today; next week we cover the subject “Approval Addict”, which is chapter 3 in the book.

An Overview of Ephesians

Good morning and welcome to class this morning. Today we are going to have a special lesson before we begin our 11-week study into the Search for Significance. I asked for suggestions and one of our members came up with this idea of studying the book of Ephesians. I trimmed it back a little to an overview. So let us get started by opening up our Bibles to Ephesians 1:1, what does it say?

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus: NASU

What does this tell us?

· It was written by Paul, the Apostle.
· It was written to believers.
· It was written to the church at Ephesus.

Believe it or not there used to be a controversy over whether this letter was actually written to the believers at Ephesus. This was because there were three very old manuscripts that did not include the words “in Ephesus”, but now the consensus is that it was indeed written as stated.

As we take a look at this letter that Paul wrote I want us to try to put ourselves in Paul’s place. By doing this we will be able to get an understanding of the significance of this letter.

First, Paul was under house arrest in Rome, as described in Acts chapter 28, and he had gotten there due to his making an appeal to Caesar about the trial results from his arrest in the temple at Jerusalem. Just like Jesus, he faced the council, they plotted to kill him, he then faced the Roman administrator, then the king. The roman administrator could not have him released or executed like Jesus because Paul had appealed to the Caesar so he was finally sent to Rome.

Second, Paul faced a problematical question. How long did he have before he was placed in front of Caesar, with its highly likely outcome of execution? There is no way he could know this so he had to decide what to do with his time, he had to prioritize his work. So he decided to write some important letters. During his time under house arrest he wrote Colossians, Philemon, Philippians and Ephesians, this happened in approximately 60-61 AD.

Third, whom should he write to, and why? For us this morning, the question is why Ephesus? To answer that we need to look at what the city was at the time.

Ephesus was the biggest Greek city in what was called the known world at the time; only Rome and Alexandria were bigger. It is estimated that a population of up to 500,000 lived in this port city, located at the mouth of the River Cayster. It was the gateway to the Roman province of Asia, which is basically modern day Turkey, and was the capital of the region.

Ephesus was the site of the great Temple of Artemis, the Greek goddess of fertility, who the Romans called Diana. The Temple of Artemis was four times bigger than the Parthenon in Athens, and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. While it has not been conclusively proved that child sacrifice was conducted at this temple, it was a practice of the peoples in that part of the world as a fertility offering.

Acts chapter 19 records that when Paul was in Ephesus, many miracles were performed by God. Verse 20 says this:

So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. NASU

This is important for us to understand because Ephesus was a center of dark spiritual activity. I would say that it was most likely the most spiritually dangerous place that Paul ever encountered.

The sum of this information is this, and it answers the question we asked about why write to the church at Ephesus? The city was the center of both human and ungodly spiritual activity for the entire province of Asia. What happened in Ephesus eventually found its way to the rest of the province, and was exported around the so-called civilized world through its trading partners. As the powers of darkness and secularism were defeated there, the whole world would see it. Of all the cities that Paul visited, this was the most important.

It was so important that Paul installed his “son in the Lord”, Timothy, the person he trusted the most, to oversee the church there. It was so important that he chose to write this letter we are looking at, as his way of strengthening the church there. He knew that he may never get back to see Timothy or his friends there, and he wanted to give them two major messages:

· To remind them of what God has done.
· To encourage them to fulfill their calling.

So we find that Paul provides a good overview of the Christian life to the Ephesians that has become a timeless message for all believers. Let us go through the book and highlight some of the more important mini messages.

Eph 1:1-2 is the greeting, which we have already looked at.

Eph 1:3-14 is sometimes called the Ephesians’ Doxology, which simply means song of praise. It contains some important things for us:

· 3-6 declares God divine purpose for saving us, the church, began with the Father’s identification of His believers in eternity, and this is “to the praise of His glory”. (v6)
· 7-12 looks at the fact that in the fullness of time He saved His church by the redeeming work of Christ, “to the praise of His glory”. (v12)
· 13-14 identifies that we were saved and sealed by the giving of the Holy Spirit, “to the praise of His glory”. (v14)

Eph 1:15-23 is a prayer of thanksgiving and petition for knowledge, understanding and wisdom for believers.

· 15-16 is a moment of thanks for the faith and love of the believers.
· 17-23 is the prayer request for spiritual wisdom, and knowledge to understand all that God has done, and spells out some of it.

Eph 2:1-3:21 goes through the steps that God has taken to carry out His eternal plan of salvation.

· 2:1-10, Paul clearly tells us that both Jew and Gentile are saved by grace alone.

Let’s actually read verses 8-9:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. NASU

I want to spend a moment on this verse. What is unique about this peculiarly Christian doctrine? (Discuss) It is the issue of “works” or the errant thinking that a person can earn their way into God’s presence. Christianity is the only religion that states it, Judaism implies it or points its followers toward it, but until Christ came it wasn’t made clear to them. (Any other thoughts?)

· 2:11-22 discusses how God united what is called the “circumcision and uncircumcision” into one church through Christ. Jesus is pictured here as our “peace”, Jehovah Shalom in the Old Testament, and also as our cornerstone with whom we fit as one body.
· 3:1-6, God has revealed the mystery of His plan, first to His Apostles and then to us.
· 3:7-13, God instructed Paul to speak of this mystery of the plan of salvation to the gentiles, and thereby revealing it also to the angels, which are called “rulers and authorities in heavenly places” in v10. (Read verses 8-11)
· 3:14-21, a prayer to strengthen, with power, the believers through the Holy Spirit. Paul finishes this section with “to Him be the glory forever and ever”.

Eph 4:1-6:18 is a long treatise on how to walk with God.

· 4:1-6 is a call to unity bonded together by peace, let’s read it!
· 4:7-16 exhorts us to use the gifts we have all been given to serve the church. (Ask the class to identify, if they comfortable doing it, one gift they are using to serve Parkway with.)
· 4:17-24 instructs us to separate ourselves from pagan lifestyles and to become spiritually renewed to be like God in righteousness and holiness. (Read v22-24)
· 4:25-5:2 tells us not to “grieve the Holy Spirit” by lying, indulging in sinful anger, stealing, bad language, resentments, slander or any other wickedness in our Hearts. Be kind and tenderhearted, just like God.
· 5:3-14 is a call to call to moral purity, walk as children of light, guarding against impure thoughts, words and actions.
· 5:15-21 says to be wise, be filled with the Spirit and to worship God in fellowship, and be accountable to each other.
· 5:22-23 is our love and respect passages. Love and respect each other in our marriages.
· 6:1-4 love and respect in other family relationships.
· 6:5-9 honor God in your employee/employer situations remembering that every person has great value in the sight of God.
· 6:10-18, the final instruction. Be aware that you are engaged in a war, a spiritual war. Stand firm and use the defenses God has given you in battling the true enemy, the rulers, the powers and the forces of darkness that occupy the world.

The last few verses are Paul talking about his personal situation, which he knows might be of concern to the believers in Ephesus.

I am going to close now, but before I do, has anybody got any last questions about the book of Ephesians?

Next week we begin our study about every person’s “Search for Significance”.

Dealing With Current Relationships

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEARNING HOW TO BE SAFE (2 OF 2)

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

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

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

Inviting Truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enter Into Forgiveness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giving Back

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEARNING HOW TO BE SAFE (1 of 2)

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

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

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

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

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

Ask for help

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn to need

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Work through resistances

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

· Passivity
· Fear
· Pride
· Hard Heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don't try to tie your own Shoelaces!

This is a special blog entry. It is the text of my presentation on "powerlessness" made at Celebrate Recovery on Friday, July 11, 2008. It includes the slides I used and the scripture references that go with them.

SLIDE ONE – Powerless (Introductory Slide)

Tonight’s lesson is officially titled “powerless”, but I’m going to give it a special name:

Don’t try to tie your own shoelaces!

Tonight we are on the second of two lessons revolving around Principle one and Step 1. The first lesson, which began a yearlong trek through the whole CR 12 step curriculum, was called “denial”. This lesson is officially titled “powerless”. To grasp what goes on in the early stages of a recovery program it is important to view these two things together, denial and powerless. I want to give you a visual aid here. I need a volunteer to help me with this.

(Have the volunteer adopt a boxer’s stance, and instruct him or her to gently throw a punch, block it with one arm and counter with a punch of your own, making sure that no contact is actually made)

Now let’s do that again with some instruction first. I am going to name my left arm “denial” and my right arm we are calling “power”. As my volunteer begins to try to deal with their problem, they strike out against it, that is the first punch thrown. BUT, it was blocked by “denial” and they were knocked back down by “power”. Please say thank to my volunteer.

Inside us there is a fight going on, our Soul experiences a deep desire to get out of our problem, but it also has developed a strong denial barrier and a habit of doing things under its own power. Last time we looked at denial, this week we are going to look at coming out from operating under our own power and recognizing that we must adopt an attitude of powerlessness.

Let’s look at tonight’s Principle, Step and associated verses.

SLIDE TWO – Principle 1
SLIDE THREE – Mt 5:3
SLIDE FOUR – Step 1
SLIDE FIVE – Rom 7:18

I’m now going to quickly run through tonight’s acrostic for the lesson, you will find it laid out on the front of the worksheet which should have been on the chair as you came in tonight. The seven items I’m going to cover are called “serenity robbers” in the CR participant guides. I want to first acknowledge that that is a good way of thinking about them, and then I want to add a different description, I call them barriers to personal growth, barriers to becoming powerless, barriers that keep us in our hurts habits and hang-ups. The first one is PRIDE.

SLIDE SIX – Pride
SLIDE SEVEN – Pr 29:23
SLIDE EIGHT – The “deadly mixture” slide.

Pride is a very unique thing. It is deadly to our Soul. Pride is present when we have an overly high opinion of ourselves and our abilities. Pride is what got Satan kicked out of heaven. What is so deadly about it? It is simple, when we are prideful, we think we know it all, and when we operate this way, we exclude God from our lives. In the extreme, we even act as though we are God. My life has been full of pride, born out of self-reliance, and God has been dealing with me about this. He has given me a word picture. He says “Ken, when you are being prideful you are poking me in the eye with a pointed stick”. My interpretation of this message is that my pride is offensive and painful to God, and that when I am that way He is not able to help because I have driven Him away. Does that make sense to you?

SLIDE NINE – Only ifs
SLIDE TEN – Lk 12:2-3

Have you ever had a case of the “if onlys”? If only I could quit gambling, if only he would stop drinking, if only she would quit nagging. If you have you have done this, you have indulged in the great rationalizing strategy of wishful thinking. It is a total emotional energy drain. This “only if” habit can just get you stuck in dreaming about what might be, and it completely stops you in trying to get out of denial. This wishful thinking deludes you into believing you have some sort of personal power to get your wish fulfilled. It is a trap.

SLIDE ELEVEN – Worry
SLIDE TWELVE – Mt 6:34

Does anybody here get anxious? Has anxiety ever helped solve a problem? When Jesus spoke these words for us in the “Sermon on the Mount” He was trying to get us to understand that worrying shuts us down and in some ways shuts God out. It is as if we don’t trust God to protect and provide for us. For those that do worry, that thought about not trusting God might initiate a guilt trip; it is not meant to. It is meant to encourage us to consider if we are pushing out God when we really don’t mean to, if we are taking our reasonable concerns to a level where they control our thoughts and feelings, thereby locking God out. The next time a worry comes your way, try to figure out whether you actually have control over the issue and if you are not allowing God to help you deal with whatever is causing you concern.

SLIDE THIRTEEN – Escape
SLIDE FOURTEEN – Eph 5:13-14.

One of the major characteristics of a state of denial is fantasizing, in this lesson we call it escaping. Did you know that there is a whole industry built around this very problem, it is called the romance industry, and I can give you three big examples, soap operas, romance novels and action movies? All of us escape reality from time to time; the problem comes when we make escape a part of our addiction lifestyle. It is as significant as pride in being a barrier to healing. When we escape, or fantasize, we actually are exercising internal power that allows our mind and heart to ignore our real life issues. We are being powerful not powerless.
I hope I haven’t pricked too many bubbles by exposing soaps and action movies for what they are!

SLIDE FIFTEEN –Resentments
SLIDE SIXTEEN – Eph 4:26-27

Resentments are emotional cancers. If we don’t resolve them, they sit inside our Soul and grow. They grow and take over, and in the extreme all our resentments merge together and totally dominate our lives. The cancer of resentments oozes, it releases a kind of Soul pus in the form of bitterness, strife, anger, and hatred; and this pus takes over our lives, it controls us. In step four we begin to learn to identify and let go of these cancers, but here in step one we have to acknowledge that they exist, and that they are a part of us, and we own them. The relevant truth here is that the resentments are in charge; and as a result we are actually powerless.

SLIDE SEVENTEEN – Loneliness
SLIDE EIGHTEEN – Heb 13:1-2

So many people, who are living in a life driven by a compulsive behavior or addiction, experience significant loneliness. Why do they do this? The short answer is shame, the most powerful negative emotion that exists. For some of us it feels better to be alone than to have our weaknesses exposed. Some of us may not have heard this before; fear of exposure of who we are is the same thing as shame. Psychologists use the term “shame based identity” to describe someone who would rather be alone, and not be exposed, than to relate on an intimate basis with another person. Our loneliness is a choice; we exert our personal energy or power to stay that way. If we choose the alternative, and attempt bonding relationships, we admit we are powerless, allowing God and other people to help us.

SLIDE NINETEEN – Emptiness
SLIDE TWENTY – Jn 10:10

I think this barrier is a relative of loneliness, which we just covered. When we live in a “shame based” existence, we do our best to empty ourselves of all our feelings. It takes a great deal of emotional energy and internal power to do this. This emptying activity leads to a sense of hopelessness about our future. The good news is that Jesus came to change that as our verse states.

SLIDE TWENTY-ONE - Selfishness
SLIDE TWENTY-TWO – Lk 17:33

Okay, it is time to confess. I have prayed Lord, give me, give me, change this, change that and change her! Have you ever wondered something like this? What does God do when the gets these wishes. I think He shakes His divine head saying, “why don’t they get it, the world does not revolve around him or her?” The whole problem with self is that it excludes everyone else, including God. It is an exercise in absolute personal power, and is best thought of as being a complete opposite to powerless. Selfishness is a massive barrier to becoming powerless.

SLIDE TWENTY-THREE – Separation
SLIDE TWENTY-FOUR – Rom 8:38-39

I think of this as the good news. We can retreat into loneliness, and try to empty ourselves, we can become self-centered and prideful, we can try to escape life and even God, but He, the Great Almighty, will never let us do it. He will chase us, He will make us uncomfortable, He will put people in our lives and he will love us constantly. When we try to separate ourselves from His love under our own power, he will work to allow us to be humiliated, and show us how powerless we actually are.

Well, that is the end of the seven “serenity robbers”, now we’ll look very quickly at four active steps we can take to move toward powerlessness.

SLIDE TWENTY-FIVE – Stop Denying the Pain
SLIDE TWENTY-SIX – Ps 6:2-3

Admit it! You can’t do it by yourself, no matter what you have done in life; the emotional pain is still there.

SLIDE TWENTY-SEVEN – Stop playing God
SLIDE TWENTY-EIGHT – Mt 6:24

It is God’s way, which has never failed, or your way, you choose.

SLIDE TWENTY-NINE – Start Admitting Your Powerlessness
SLIDE THIRTY – Mt 19:26

Have you succeeded in dealing with your stuff under your own power? You would not be here if the answer is “yes”. Try God.

SLIDE THIRTY-ONE – Admit Your Life has become Unmanageable
SLIDE THIRTY-TWO – Ps 40:12

Say it! My life is not under control, and I can’t handle it.

I want to finish tonight with a simple exercise we can all do to demonstrate the message that God has for us. Everybody close your eyes, we are going to go into our imaginations. Picture yourself as a five year old. You are sitting on a chair with your shoes on, and your Dad is standing there, waiting. You are trying to tie your shoelaces. Your Dad is saying, “Come on let’s go”. You say, “Dad, let me tie my shoes”. He says “Okay”. But you can’t do it. He says “Come on, we are missing it”, you respond, “Let me tie my shoes”. Now he says, “Let me help you”, you say, “NO, I can do it”, he says “Okay”, but you can’t. He says again “Let me help you”, you reply in anger, “leave me alone, I can do it”, he says “okay”. After a while he says, “Are you ready to go”, knowing that you are not. You say with tears, “I can’t tie my laces”. He says, “I know, I was waiting for you to admit it, now I can help you and we can go forward together”. Okay, we can open our eyes.

Did you get the point? Our heavenly Father wants us to be like children who admit that they can’t go forward in life until they tell the Father, “I’m powerless, I need your help.”

Thank you for listening.

What Are Safe People?

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

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

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

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

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

Draws us closer to God

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Draws us closer to others

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The four qualities are as follows:

· Real.
· Near.
· Grace.
· Truth.

Real

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

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

Near

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

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

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

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

Grace

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

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

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

One of the ways I think about grace is this:

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

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

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

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

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

Truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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