Theological Coffeehouse: Relationships, Loneliness, & The Church
Download MP3But, actually, it's a more relaxed atmosphere, which I like. Tonight, I'm gonna talk about the title is relationships, loneliness, and the church. What is redemptive about being together? And, what I what I want you to begin thinking about as I begin to talk is the relationships in your life. I want you to think about your family relationships, nuclear family, maybe adopted family, your church relationships, and your friendships.
Speaker 1:And I want you to think about those relationships that are mutually giving, mutually enjoyable, mutually restorative, where there's no difficulty. You know that sibling who always has your best interest at heart and your have their best interest at heart, and you kind of give to one another and help each other become better people, or a friendship like that. You guys have those relationships. Right? What's interesting to really note is that the final nature of reality is that kind of relationship.
Speaker 1:The trinity, 3 people who relate so well, we call them 1 God. This is best expressed simply in the verse from Genesis where it says this, then God said, let us make human beings in our image to be like us. God was speaking with himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and said, let's make people in our image. People who are relational. We desire the type of relationship that exists in the trinity.
Speaker 1:Tobin Wilson says this, God in eternity exists in a dynamic mutually mutuality, coequally, and co eternally. Three modes of being or persons and yet one essence. It's a dynamic fluid movement that does not change in essence. He also says this, in the 7th century, John of Damascus described the relationship of the three persons of God as perichoresis. The word literally means the circle dance.
Speaker 1:Each member of the trinity is unique. Its own person, but they relate so well they're called one God. They mutually give. They mutually receive. And together, they bring forth good.
Speaker 1:That's the type of relationship we long for. The reality is is that we don't live in that type of relationship anywhere, and that's what brings forth loneliness. If I was going to define loneliness, it's simply this. The painful recognition that I'm not experiencing the unbroken mutually giving relationship I was created to live in. And, I want to say something about the word of loneliness for the men in the audience.
Speaker 1:In general, women will think a little bit more in in the context of loneliness, and by that I mean relational loneliness. If you look at the creation mandate, women were created more to be fruitful and multiply and men more to rule and subdue or make a difference. We want both. We both want to be fruitful and multiply to have good relationships. We're social beings.
Speaker 1:We also want to make a difference. We're meaning seeking creatures. Women lean more in the direction of 1, men in the other, and there can always be some variances in this. But in general, a woman might resonate more with loneliness. So for the men, I wanted you to think maybe more aloneness or frustration at what you feel like when you feel futility in the world, when you wanna make a difference, whether it's at your work or what you're doing, and it's not going the way you want and you don't know what to do, it's that essence that I want you to think about when I'm talking about loneliness.
Speaker 1:For women, in general, you're gonna think more in the context maybe of relational loneliness and rejection and that type of thing, but I wanted to define that a little bit for our purposes tonight. But, the reality is is that we all experience aloneness or loneliness. It says this in Proverbs, that each heart knows its own bitterness and no one else can fully share its joy. Each heart knows its own bitterness and no one else can fully share its joy. What that's really saying is there's a level of loneliness that cannot be taken away in this world.
Speaker 1:I think the design of loneliness in a fallen world, and remember even before sin and suffering and death entered the world, God said it's not good to be alone. That's before that entered the world. So, then think about what that means with sin, suffering, and death. Lonliness is that much more difficult, but God said in that context, it's not good for man to be alone. And when he cursed the world, in in Romans 8 it talks about God cursing the world in hope.
Speaker 1:His hope was that as we experience aloneness in the world that it would help us to look up and out. That we would actually look towards the Lord. What we tend to do, when maybe we experience rejection as a woman or that futility as a man where we're not as productive or it's not as easy as we want, what we tend to do is turn inward where self hatred increases. I should do something to prevent this from happening to me or other center hatred increases. That person or this system is not coming through for me, and that's why I experience difficulty.
Speaker 1:The aloneness or loneliness that we experience is to help us look up and out, not in and down. And yet, oftentimes in this world, it causes us to look in and down which exacerbates self hatred or other centered hatred. And, I just I wanted to read through a couple verses that just affirm how the aloneness or loneliness we experience is to help us look up and out or to depend more richly on the Lord. It says this in, Psalm 73. Nevertheless, I'm continually with you.
Speaker 1:You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward, you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Speaker 1:When you hear that verse, how often in those periods of loneliness, frustration, difficulty, are they the words that come to you? Or how often do these words come to you? I should have done better, or this shouldn't have happened, or there's something wrong with me, or something wrong with my church, or my job, or my boss. How often do those periods cause you to look down and in and blame yourself or others? Or how often does it help you to look up and out where you're really saying, Lord, who do I have in heaven beside you?
Speaker 1:Where can I go apart from you? Says this in Matthew 28. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you and be sure of this. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Or this from Hebrews, don't love money, be satisfied with what you have, for God has said I will never fail you, I will never abandon you.
Speaker 1:So we can say with confidence, the Lord is my helper, so I'll have no fear. What can mere people do to me? I could continue to read verse and verse and verse that points us to this longing, this desire, this reality that God wants us to remember that he is for us. As a parent, sometimes when I struggle and I get anxious about my daughters and their faith, I simply remember this. That they are made for someone much bigger than themselves to care about them and life will introduce them to this need on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:I don't have to worry about their need for God or their desire God's desire to meet that need. I just have to walk with them in a way that I help facilitate the 2 coming together. There's times I want to get anxious and engineer their faith and make sure it's going to be all okay, but I know this deep inside them, there's a longing for someone bigger to take care of them, and there's someone much bigger who desires to do that for them. So, I want you to think about loneliness and how it pushes us into ourselves and down, and how that pushes us away from nourishing community. If we're gonna talk about what's being what's redemptive about being together, one of the things I want you to begin to think about is how well is the difficulty of life helping you to look up and outward in a way that the Lord's meeting you, and you're feeling more freedom to participate in the very community you want to be nourishing?
Speaker 1:Or how often is the other happening where the communities you're apart again, it could be your family community, your work community, your church community, your neighborhood. How often are the difficulties pushing you in and down and away from nourishing community? And, how offering how often are you listening to trials and temptations about yourself and what you're doing wrong, or trials and temptations about what the others around you are doing wrong in a way that keeps you living in darkness or despair in those communities? Or how often are you looking up and out and finding some rest in the Lord that nourishes you and helps you to participate more meaningfully in that community? What I want to move towards that's kind of an introduction a little bit.
Speaker 1:And I want to move towards what does God really say he wants to provide for us in the midst of this loneliness? Okay? And this is from Psalm 68. Says this, sing praises to God and to his name. Sing loud praises to him who rides the clouds.
Speaker 1:His name is the Lord. Rejoice in his presence. Father to the fatherless, defender of widows, this is God whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families. He sets the prisoners free and gives them joy.
Speaker 1:God places the lonely in families or communities. How often are you finding yourself part of communities that are helping you with the loneliness that is a normal and natural part of life? Or how often are you looking for those communities to take away any semblance of loneliness in a way that they can't so that you remain disappointed with yourself and them. Okay? There's really 2 types of families.
Speaker 1:We're gonna talk about what is God's provision for loneliness. I'm gonna name 2 types of families. One type is a biological or adopted family. That's the family essentially that you grow up in, or then it can be really a church family that adopts you. But, I want you to think that that's a structural family.
Speaker 1:A family where you find belonging and sovereignty and a lot of good things that I'm gonna talk about. But, that's a structural family. And, then, I want you to think about in a relational or effective family. Your structural family ought to help you look up. It ought to help you feel accepted so that you're able to consider God's love and move towards it.
Speaker 1:Your effective family or your relational family should really help you move out into the world. That's the family that should be making essentially an intentional gospel difference in your life. The biological or structural family in many ways simply provides things that help you feel accepted. But your functional family, your relational family, should help you make movement out into the gospel, which is both self acceptance and accepting others, but it's also participating with the Lord and kind of advancing his kingdom and whatever that looks like in your domain. That doesn't have to mean witnessing or anything like that.
Speaker 1:That simply means offering your gifts in a way that's bringing forth the kingdom. We're made for both good relationship, but also to make a difference. If we're not making a difference, becoming more a part of his kingdom, we will feel that loneliness, that despair. And if we're not connected, we'll feel it. We need both.
Speaker 1:So let's think about what a structural family or biological family can give you. It should really give you a sense of belonging. I got back last night from 5 days in New Jersey, where I grew up, And, when I'm with my family, we do a number of things that help me feel like I belong. First of all, we always talk about pizza and, sub sandwiches and pork roll. If anyone grew up on the Jersey Shore, you know what pork roll is.
Speaker 1:Other than that, you don't. But, in a strange way, God knows we live in time and space, and the Lord has used those things to help me feel a belonging. As my daughter ate a sausage pie, you call it a pie in New Jersey, not pizza. My daughter ate sausage pie with my family in North Jersey, and it tasted better than any piece of pizza she's had in Alabama. There's a part of me that felt really connected to my family's history.
Speaker 1:And honestly, in a weird way, I felt more connected to the Lord. That's a funny way to talk about belonging, but when my daughters are around my other brothers and their facial expressions are like mine, and some of their mannerisms, and some of their quirks. They freak out because we're not around. My family is so far away. We're not around them a lot, and it just freaks my daughters out.
Speaker 1:But in a really strange way, you know what they're remembering? Is there's a creator who has a design, and we are part of something bigger than just this little family in Birmingham. Biological family gives you a sense of belonging because it's the same place. I love that my daughters have a love for Jersey and Bruce Springsteen. Because as an adolescent in the late seventies early eighties, you either loved Bruce Springsteen or you hated him growing up in New Jersey.
Speaker 1:I was in the former, not the latter. And, I love like, honestly, we we have really good friends and my friend loves the boss too. And we talked a little bit recently that probably at one of our funerals, their girls and our girls will want to listen to Springsteen afterwards because of the way it just helps them remember their fathers. Okay? But, my daughters being connected to those things just helps them feel part of something bigger.
Speaker 1:And let me tell you this, whenever you move closer to and appreciate the creation, the time and space things that we're a part of, you are being nourished by the creator. Don't minimize belonging and how important that is. I believe well, I'll say a little bit more about that later. The other thing, that a family helps you wrestle with is God's sovereignty. It says this, we are the clay and he is the potter.
Speaker 1:Are we saying then that God is unfair? Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with god? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, why have you made me like this? When a potter makes jars of clay, doesn't he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into? There are some strong words, but if you're anything like me, sometimes in Christian community we do a really good job of celebrating God's sovereignty when things work out well.
Speaker 1:I don't think on the other and if you're gonna do that, then you need to feel permission to question his sovereignty when things don't work out well. Because I think the more free you do both, the closer you embrace his sovereignty in your life. But your family that you grow up in really helps you to question God's sovereignty. It can help you to really appreciate God's sovereignty If your family was beautiful and redemptive, and there was tons more good than bad. There are families like that, and then there are families where it's the other It helped you question God's sovereignty.
Speaker 1:But, in addition, like one of the reason I questioned God's sovereignty growing up is, I wanted to be a really good basketball player or a really good football player. And, when I looked around at my family, I didn't see anybody above 58. And, so I had to question, Lord, why did you put these desires in me when I really want to be a good football or basketball player, and I'm challenged in that direction. And, it was a painful reality as a junior in high school when I finally recognized, I'm not gonna play football for Penn State. And I had to deal with that and God.
Speaker 1:But family can help you question sovereignty and appreciate sovereignty, and I believe if you keep doing the gospel, questioning and appreciating, that more over time, you will grow into appreciating his sovereignty. My daughter's gonna leave for college in 2 weeks, and I kind of hope that she awakens more so to both the beauty and the depravity in our family in a way that helps her begin to get closer to the Lord. That's a normal beginning process in college. You step out of your family, and you really like I'm expecting her to appreciate us a little bit more as much as I'm expecting her to question us a little bit more. Because she's gonna be wrestling more deeper with God's sovereignty, but that is what your family helps you to do.
Speaker 1:There's no way apart away from that as you grow in the Lord. The last thing that family really does is it helps you recognize the themes in your life. When it says you raise a child in the way he should go, and when he's older he won't depart from it, Most good evangelicals believe that that you teach the child the doctrines of the faith. You get to them rationally, and once they get a hold of that, then they won't depart from that. I personally really believe that that means you raise a child according to their bent.
Speaker 1:You help them get to know their unique gifts, the way their flesh works, and then you preach the gospel to them in that context, so they kind of begin to get a sense of how they're gonna do the gospel for life. I'll give you a simple example of that. My oldest daughter, when she was in 5th grade, it was her 1st year in public school. She had been homeschooled prior to that. As we were driving home from school, I would pick her up some days and I would say, oh, we gotta run and do an errand at errand at Publix.
Speaker 1:And she was like, dad, no. We can't do that. I gotta get home and work on my homework. And I was like I didn't really say it this way, but, sweetheart, we can really spare 15 minutes. Your homework isn't that important.
Speaker 1:But as a typical first born, she was anxious to get it all right and to be on top of it. And she loves to perform and look good, and she can naturally do that in some ways. So school was a great opportunity for her to demonstrate her incredible proficiency. And so, as I saw that anxiety increase, I really longed for the day when she would get a bad grade, and I could not make a big deal about it. So I could begin to teach her that performance is not that important.
Speaker 1:And, what you really have to learn more than how to perform better, which she often blamed us that we didn't push her hard enough. I kept saying, sweetie, you need grace. You don't need increased performance. Well, this was the end of her junior year, and it's late at night, and it was finals week. And I'm up late and she's up late, and she says, dad it's, 12:30 and I could probably spend another hour and maybe raise my grade.
Speaker 1:I don't even know that it matters. I think I'm going to get a good grade, anyways or I could go to bed. And, I said, sweetheart. Why don't you go to bed? And, she looked at me for the first time in about 18 years, and didn't tell me to push her harder, but said, you're right.
Speaker 1:And, for her senior year, she didn't max out on all hard classes because she understood better who she was. And, she took the AP class that really fits with her longing, which was English, and didn't do some of the other hard things. And, the beauty in her senior year compared to all her other years was so much richer. And the joy I took was we have helped her get to know her bent, and how to live the gospel in her context in a way that I think is gonna help her for life. Keep her grounded in the gospel.
Speaker 1:So when I was a counselor, when I talk about themes in someone's life, I don't do that. I always get nervous because of what people think about counseling, and they start thinking I'm gonna get them to blame their life on their family. And, I say, no. No. I wanna talk about your family, so we can understand the themes in your life because you're the same person and you're dealing with those same themes.
Speaker 1:We just see them more clearly in your family. Does that make sense? So the 3 things I talked about that your biological family can give you is a sense of belonging, an increased appreciation if you keep doing the gospel for God's sovereignty, and then a recognition of your themes. Now, I want to say that the church as a family should do the same thing. And, I believe at some point in your life you should transition from biological family giving you that primarily to the church family giving you that more and more.
Speaker 1:But I wanna say this, that that's like adoption. So could you imagine an adopted child after 2 weeks, someone saying to that child, why don't you feel a part of this family? Why don't you feel like you're belonging? Why don't you have a great appreciation for God's sovereignty? Why aren't you recognizing the themes of your life?
Speaker 1:That would be crazy to say that to someone who is adopted. You guys are adopted into God's family, and I think it takes a good 20 years to really embrace those themes as part of God's family. So, if you're 22 now and you've just really becoming part of a church as an adult, when you feel rest in your church family at 42, let's all celebrate that. But, let's not blame yourself or your church when you're on the way there. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:And then, let me say this about let me just read this sentence because it deals with the church and the person. The church and person must accept the person's ability to attach to the church, and the church's ability to provide structural family will be facilitated when they both recognize and accept how the past will influence this process. Let me read that again. Church and person must accept the person's ability to attach to the church and the church's ability to provide structural family will be facilitated when they both recognize and accept how the past will influence the process. So as a church, if someone's not quickly becoming a part of the church or feeling that, there may be reasons in their story that really hamper that.
Speaker 1:And then you just have to slow down and learn to walk with them. Vice versa. If it's not going great, you have to think about your own story and what it means for you to attach, and how that's a process. But I think for anybody to really feel at rest with those 3 big things I talked about in terms of what a structural family can can give you, that's not gonna happen quickly. And that takes a long time.
Speaker 1:Alright? So let's move on to talk about relational or functional family. Alright? I think what relational or functional family should do is help you be reconciled to God. Now, that example I used of my daughter, how she gets to know herself a little bit better, we've helped her be reconciled to God.
Speaker 1:She's not so resentful that we haven't pushed her as hard as she thought we should have, because she understands a little bit better why we didn't, and she's connected to the gospel reasons for why that is. Okay? We've helped her reconcile to God, but I but I want you to know that that process really, really picked up speed for her when she really connected to her youth pastor. Because I wanna tell you how we read family relationships. We read family relationships like this.
Speaker 1:See the paper in front of me? We read every other relationship like that. Okay? The family relationship is so in front of you, it's hard to make movement. So that's why structural family needs to focus, or the structural part of family needs to focus on that belonging, that sense of God's sovereignty, and the recognition of themes.
Speaker 1:Functional family helps you move on those themes. So the larger church community is structural family, but those 2 or 3 friends that you have in the church, they should help you make movement on the those themes. The church should provide a sense of belonging, a reminder of God's sovereignty, help you begin to recognize the themes, but those movement on those themes should be the people are helping you flesh it out from day to day. Okay? So, functional family should help you experience or move into your reconciliation with God or make more movement on your themes.
Speaker 1:Then then good, good, good relational community in the church does 2 big things. It takes away deception and helps you soften to God to accept what he's trying to do in your life. It says this in Hebrews 3. Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.
Speaker 1:You must warn each other every day while it is still today, so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. The relational or functional part of your church community should be taking you away from deception and help your heart soften towards God. There are many days where my daughters will ask why do we go to church? Because as kids who wanna suck the life out of life, church often feels boring. Alright?
Speaker 1:And I'll say to them, really what church should do a little bit is help you feel softened a church service, a Sunday, and this is structural family, help you feel softened towards God. Alright? And it should pull you some out of deception. That's what communion helps us do is to say, Lord, have mercy on us. We easily get deceived, but again, it's the more functional family, which is gonna happen more relationally that pushes you forward into those themes.
Speaker 1:And so those the passages that kind of reflect on this is something like, speak truth to one another in love because we belong to each other. Now, whenever I talk about that passage, I ask people what immediately comes to mind? Speak truth to one another love because we belong to each other. What immediately comes to mind when I say that? Anybody?
Speaker 1:Real quick. Say again. Confrontation. Confrontation. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Usually, people are thinking hard things. Now, if the only thing that's true about you is that you're deceived and you're wicked in your hard, then then Christian community should always be confronting you. But, if on the other hand there's beauty to you and there's nobility to you, and you sacrifice and love others, then the truth about you is you live out the gospel in ways you don't see. I I feel most people are deceived about their sinful tendencies as much as they are deceived about their good tendencies. And good relational community ought to help you appreciate both.
Speaker 1:The example I love to use about this is many, many years ago, when I was actually looking for a position in ministry, and at that point what I had was a master of arts in biblical counseling, and I had worked 2 years with adolescents, And I'm about 30. So what job do you think I would naturally look for? A youth pastor job. Right? So I'm filling out youth pastor resumes and my really good friend calls me and he says, what are you doing?
Speaker 1:And I said, I'm filling out youth pastor resumes. And with really good anger, he says, on your best day, you would be the worst youth pastor in America. K? That helped me with my deception because I was afraid I was shooting low because I was afraid that I wouldn't get what I really wanted. And then he said this, but if you were preaching next week, I would be there.
Speaker 1:And, that encouragement, the truth was I was deceived, but there was something much better inside of me. He helped me feel both, and I moved out more into reconciliation with God. When he got off the phone, here's what I said, and it was to the Lord. He helped me move up and out. I said, Lord, I'm not filling out another youth pastor resume.
Speaker 1:My friend's faith for me helps me to connect with my own faith. And, Lord, I know you want good things for me. And, it actually led to an assistant pastor's job. So, it doesn't always work out well, but it did in that case. Okay?
Speaker 1:So functional or relational community should help you move out into your redemptive theme stories, where you're moving away from your self hatred. You're moving away from other center hatred, and you're just moving out into being more a part of community, because you have more self acceptance and more sense of your gifting. You're not as deceived and you're not as distanced from God. That community has helped you look up and out. It's nourished you.
Speaker 1:It's refreshed you, and you're becoming more a part of life giving community. Okay? So what I wanna talk about now are some things that get in the way of this. Okay? These would be kind of reminders about growing a life that is more nourishingly connected.
Speaker 1:If we're talking about loneliness, and how community, and church, and family can be nourishing to us, we have to think about those things that get in the way. And, I want to go back to the first thing I talked about. If I asked you the question, why do you experience loneliness? Based on what I said earlier, I hope your answer would be because I experience loneliness. I hope your answer wouldn't be because of that person next to me, or that job that's often frustrating, or because this, that, or the other thing.
Speaker 1:Can I tell you this world has been subjected to futility, so that you would be forced to look up and out and experience more of God in your life? So if your hope about structural family, biological family, adopted family, church family, is that they will take away your loneliness, then then you won't make as beautiful movement into nourishing community. Okay? So, you have to first accept that there's going to be a loneliness that doesn't go away until heaven. This if you if you all were here last year, this follows a little bit on what I said.
Speaker 1:I just always want you to know we move most into the gospel through paradox. Life brings death. Okay? He loses his life, finds it. He who gains his life or tries to keep his life, loses it.
Speaker 1:Again, if you simply just accept that there's going to be loneliness, now you're moving more towards nourishing community than looking to your communities to take away that loneliness as a fundamental value of that community. Does that make sense? Okay. So, let's move on. Centering on structural community over functional community will exacerbate loneliness.
Speaker 1:I'll just say it this way. We're really good at doing things like this. This is good structural community. Now there's some teaching and some interaction, so that will help you make movement on your themes. But unless you have people in your life and you're working with people in your life to grow into your life, you're not going to make movement towards the Lord and reconciliation towards him.
Speaker 1:We tend both as a church and as a people to function on the structural things because they're more manageable. And a simple question like what's easier to do? Not that throwing a dinner party is easier, but what's easier to do throw it easy. What's easier to do throw a dinner party or to have a meaningful conversation with your friend. Okay.
Speaker 1:What's easier to do if you have small groups if you're a small group leader, like, they're challenging things to shepherd a group. It's really easier to throw a dinner party, but we tend to focus on structural things versus functional things. And, I think the gospel is opposite. We're to primarily focus more on the functional things and pay attention to those and look to grow in those while we do structural things that support that effort. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Okay. The most poignant times for the gospel to grow is when you're in loneliness and you reach out for more of the Lord. When and that's functional community. The church can't your family nobody can take away loneliness. So, when you're in aloneness and you look to yourself or look to others instead of looking to the Lord, you shut down an opportunity for the gospel to grow.
Speaker 1:Okay? It says this in Ephesians. I pray that from his glorious unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong.
Speaker 1:And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully, then you will be made complete with all of the fullness of life and the power that comes from God. I'll say it another way. Most often, when you're playing into the temptation to beat up yourself for your aloneness or futility or frustration or blame the others in your world, you are in essence choosing to move away from nourishing community. It says this about our tendency to be self deceived.
Speaker 1:If you judge the log in your own eye, you will see more clearly to to judge the splinter in your brother's eye. And it also says the way in which you judged, you will be judged. So as you're moving away from your tendency to be self deceived. Okay? Evil wants you to be deceived that the difficulty in your life is because you're doing something wrong or someone else is doing something wrong.
Speaker 1:He wants you to be deceived about that so you stay stuck there and look down and in instead of up and out. And really say, lord, I have disappointments that are real with people around me and those things need to change. But lord, meet me in this difficulty. Help me reach out to you. Lord, the ways you are pursuing me day in and day out, some of which aren't even relational, and I don't pay attention to them.
Speaker 1:Help me be nourished by them. And, as that Ephesians passage is his love is going deep down into your soil and you're being nourished in the gospel. You begin to have a hope that helps you pay attention and see things that you normally wouldn't see that helps you connect with the nourishing community that's around you. Right? So primarily focusing on structural community versus functional community really shuts down our ability to experiencing life giving, nourishing community.
Speaker 1:Those times where we actually are trying to give ourselves to being un the deception arise being uncovered, and we're trying to hear the gospel. Christ is coming in us. Do you know this about Jesus? Do Do you know the path he walked was suffering and rejection, and y'all he came alive on that path. He became more determined on that path where he got to the point where he took on your sin and my sin and went apart from his father.
Speaker 1:I believe when he took on that sin, he was alienated from God, and that's what hurt him most was that very nourishing community he had experienced from all eternity and grew in here on earth. He was separated from it. K. But he came to life in suffering and sin and death. I believe the same thing can happen sometimes not sometimes, oftentimes.
Speaker 1:I have the honor of working with people who come to me because they have come face to face with sin and suffering and death. I can remember a woman I worked with who live in a small town an hour away from here whose husband was a prominent person in the town and had an affair. And the level of wounding and shame she felt as she walked around town, owned her for a long time. But, years later as we were finishing our counseling, I looked at her and I said, here's the amazing thing. That you have become more beautiful and more alive and someone that people would wanna be with more than the other way around.
Speaker 1:In your darkness, in your loneliness, you let God find you and you responded in a way that nourished you. And now you have more nourishing community around you because you can be receptive to it. Okay? So, we wanna function we wanna focus on functional community versus structural community, but continue to build structural community because it supports functional community. Okay?
Speaker 1:The next thing is when you and the church make functioning well and helping you become a better person, you shut down your ability to experience life. When your church is about functioning well, when you think it's about functioning well, when you think it's about making you a better person, when the church thinks it's about making you a better person, that actually shuts down your ability to connect. Alright? Romans 7 says this, that our tendency is to sin and we can't stop ourselves. We do the things we shouldn't do.
Speaker 1:The things we should do, we don't do. Right? Our tendency is to sin and we can't stop ourselves. If the way we deal with that tendency is to preach the law or perfectionism or moralism, we actually make everything worse. K?
Speaker 1:So where the church continues to teach you and help you understand the level of brokenness that's in your life, so that you feel an increasing safety to express that. And then, you actually cooperate by taking chances to be more honest about your brokenness. Guess what you find? More nourishing community. Okay?
Speaker 1:When the church makes you try harder to be a better person than when you experience when you experience loneliness you get busier trying to solve that which takes you away from it. Okay? So, together, when you and the church are participating together to accept the normal and natural brokenness that's in life, you're opening the door for more nourishing community. Okay? Alright.
Speaker 1:Looking to biological family or your nuclear family to be a primary life giving source will hurt your movement away from loneliness. We tend to make the same mistake with our nuclear family, our biological family that we can make with the church. And that's this, that my family should take away all my difficulty. Alright? And it gets worse as you move outside the family and get married because then your parents begin thinking you should take away all their loneliness.
Speaker 1:It's called leaving and cleaving, and I deal with it all the time. Okay? I'm often helping young couples to feel okay about the fact that they're no longer manageable to their parents. So now their parents have to actually deal with some disappointment in their relationship with you, and now they're forced to look up and out to a God who's much bigger to them. But, we have this teaching that family should be everything, and family should always come through.
Speaker 1:Can I tell you what I never taught my daughters? Is that they should be best friends. Not once have I said that. So, I was surprised 3 or 4 years ago when my middle daughter said that her older sister was her best friend because there was permission in our family to talk about not being best friends. As much as I've been surprised that they haven't been as great friends off and on since that moment, my middle daughter said that her oldest sister was her best friend.
Speaker 1:Okay? We have suffered and felt wounding that they're often not friendly, the same way we've experienced that in our marriage. But I want to tell you that Jesus doesn't talk about your nuclear family the way we do in America. Alright? Says this, that as Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mothers and brothers stood outside asking to speak to him.
Speaker 1:Someone told Jesus, your mother and your brothers are outside and they want to speak to you. Jesus asked, who is my mother? Who are my brothers? And he pointed to his disciples and said, look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who do the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
Speaker 1:At one time, Jesus was calling someone and the fellow said, in grief, I wanna go bury my father. Do you know what Jesus said to him? Let the dead bury the dead. Family obligations compared to following the gospel are not that important. One of the ways evil preaches the law the most is telling you that your biological family should be, has to be, ought to be.
Speaker 1:It can never be everything. It was not designed to do that. When I talked about belonging, I believe that's what a family does best is help you give a sense of belonging. When family begins, especially with adult children, it's a little bit different with children in the home, but with adult children, when your family tries to help you make movement on your issues, instead of focused on belonging, they take you away from the gospel. Let's just say you're, I don't know, single and you're 30 and you're in Birmingham, and let's say you're female.
Speaker 1:That's a hard, I think, being a single female over 30 in Birmingham is one of the hardest things to do in Birmingham, because it's such a church centric, family centric culture. If you're a woman over 30, you know what I'm talking about in general. But, let's say you go to a wedding, and that wedding helps you get in touch again with your longing to be married, and you feel a little bit of that. Your life in general is a good life, but you really want that longing to be satisfied. And then you're talking on the phone with your mom a couple days later about that, and she begins to tell you what to do about that pain, she has now taken you away from moving towards that.
Speaker 1:Okay? When your mom just hurts with you and realize at some level she's limited to speak to that in your life at this season, it helps you stay open to God because you get off the phone and she says something like that must really be hard. You just feel her with you. You get off the phone wanting more of the Lord and wanting to move towards that, because she hasn't intentionally tried to push you in that direction. It's really hard as a parent to let that aspect go of parenting, but as you age, parents become more and more dependent on things outside them to speak into your life.
Speaker 1:But if we would focus on the things we could do as families, like that same single girl, I don't know. Let's say she grew up watching football with her dad because she grew up in Alabama, and she wants to go watch the game, and she just feels comfortable barging in on her dad, and they eat the food they ate when they were growing up. She just remembers that she belongs. Or maybe, if she went to eat, watch that same game with her couple friend that was just recently married, that might be more painful to her. She feels a little bit more like a stranger in that setting.
Speaker 1:So, her parents are helping her make movements simply by providing that place where she belongs. Does that make sense? So, we make a huge mistake when we make nuclear family way more important than it can be. Either way, as children, even adult children, thinking they should take it all away from us, or parents thinking we should take it all away from adult children. And not letting children and parents both face the normal and natural aloneness and difficulty that comes with life.
Speaker 1:The last thing I wanted to say, and I'll just say it really quick, is you can make the opposite mistake. Because oftentimes adult parents want to help you consistently make movement on your themes as opposed to give you a sense of belonging and a recognition of God's sovereignty. We can totally distance ourselves from our family in a way that hurts our sense of belonging. My my family in New Jersey, it has its quirks, and its difficulties, and its real life pains. But, I am grateful year in year out, I suffered through some of them to remain connected to my family.
Speaker 1:Because it has helped me grow into God's sovereignty and come to peace with those difficulties. It's helped me remember that I really belong and be refreshed, and most of all, it's helped me remember how far I have moved away from the themes that owned me in my family. Every time I go back, I'm reminded of those things in my nuclear family. So we can make a real mistake when it's real painful to totally remove ourselves from our biological family. And what we have to do in all of these instances, whether it's thinking too much of the church or separating from the church, thinking too much of our family or separating from our family, we have to walk by faith and attention and be discerning.
Speaker 1:Where do I stay involved? Where do I give? Where do I maybe pull back a little bit? How do I continue to walk with the Lord given the families I'm a part of so that the gospel increases in my heart? Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Alright. That's way more than enough. So we will stop and take a good 10, 15 minute break. Alright. And then we'll do q and a.
Speaker 1:I'm always curious who has the bravery to ask questions in front of other people. So whoever wants to start. Anybody? Alright. Yeah.
Speaker 1:No. That's a great question. He said, I use a question from Romans about God saying how would you question the potter. And then I actually talked about questioning the potter, and how would I make sense of that dichotomy. Okay?
Speaker 1:And I would say this, in that passage, I mean, and ultimately, we really believe that God is in control, does know what he's doing, and is sovereign. I think we don't ask him those questions because it doesn't feel safe. Because sometimes other passages like that passage standing alone would say never question God, unless you read some of the Psalms and saw where God affirmed David, even affirmed Job in his questions. Or you see where Abraham, he laughed at God and so did his wife, and God called him his friend. And so in a larger context of scripture, we see both God's comfort with us humans asking questions and his affirmation of that process.
Speaker 1:So what we're why I use that passage in that context is because it is asserting his control as the potter, and I think eventually good questioning will over time in general help you come to that peace, but I take the questioning not from that passage, but from the whole scope of scripture that there's some freedom really to question. And he ultimately knows those questions in your heart. So as you feel the freedom to ask them, he meets you there, and I believe begins to help you move towards resolution with those questions. No. Anybody else?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. How does, how does the culture affect our loneliness, and maybe how can the church speak to that? And always know this that my answer is gonna be culturally encapsulated. It's gonna be impacted by my experiences and my learnings, and People would give you other answers.
Speaker 1:That's a big that's a large question. Let me say this. I our our culture certainly has its isolation that is significantly different than other cultures. And I even think social media used well is an asset in this culture because of its isolation. So how do I feel like the culture is affecting our sense of loneliness?
Speaker 1:I think the materialism of our culture, I think the, really there's 2 extremes I guess in our culture. The people who still pretend that everything's okay, and then the people that love to talk about how bad things are, and they kind of use culture to air their dirty laundry. So I I think all 3 of those are, I guess, I'm gonna as it comes to me, they're gonna I'm gonna say they're the dangers of our culture. The isolation, the pretending that everything's okay, and then the belief that everything's not okay, and it's all bad. And so, how as a church can we speak to that?
Speaker 1:I guess I'll go back to a little what I said. I think a church community, in terms of the organized local church, the thing it can do best is provide structural community, which is a sense of belonging, a remembrance of God's sovereignty, and a recognition of the themes. Then it really has to teach and train its people on how to help each other make movement on those themes. But the church leadership on some level is dependent upon people practicing at that and moving into that. So, in terms of the isolation of our culture, I think the church has to continue to provide even things like this structurally to help you be together as a church.
Speaker 1:And I think we really minimize because anything we do over time can bring its sense of boredom. We minimize the things about the church that we love over time, that really give us a sense of belonging. That might be how you do communion. That might be the music you sing, and I think we have to not only keep doing those as a church, but remember that familiarity, once you left that, there would be a real pain. That there's some real remembering you have to do, that those things that oftentimes kind of bore you are the very things God is using, to kind of take away your sense of loneliness.
Speaker 1:And then I would I would want to say some of that sense of boredom or frustration with that is really trial and temptation that you need the community that's helping you make movement on those themes to reappreciate why you like the way church does community or communion or whatever the way it does. So if the first thing I think our church is hurting I mean, the culture's hurting us with is a sense of isolation. I think where the church is providing structural community, and then teaching its members how to do relational community, then that's what a church can do to help remove some of the loneliness. But remember what I said earlier, where the church and the person is both accepting that the church can't take away all the loneliness, it will get significantly better. Because it's easy from a church perspective on staff to beat yourself up that everybody's not happy, as much as it's easy for you to beat the church up that you're not happy.
Speaker 1:And so I think you have to recognize both that on a church staff, it's not gonna all go well, and that's normal and natural. And you as a church are recognizing that it's all not gonna be peachy keen. And then whatever you guys are doing will help kind of combat some of that loneliness. The other 2, I just think you have to live and breathe and teach what is true. There's always a tension.
Speaker 1:You certainly don't want to be a people who pretend about the difficulty of life. But you also don't want to be a people who it's all about the difficulty of life. And so, you're continually walking in that tension, and hopefully growing maturity as a community. I would hope both as a person and as a church, that you're able to keep being reflective about how you can dishonor both of or honor both of those extremes, and dishonor living in detention. I would say that's the best you can do.
Speaker 1:If you can keep being honest that our tendency is to pretend or to be sarcastic and despairing and be open to those things that would help you grow more and more into nourishing community. So I hope that stabs a little bit at an answer. Yeah. Yeah. No.
Speaker 1:It's a great question. So, she's saying as a mom, where I kind of talk about the 2 different families kind of structural and relational, and right now as a mom, you're feeling like you have to provide both. I guess I would my my quickest answer would be this. Try to believe that that structural community is more what your children need, and that your tendency is gonna be to look far into the future and get them moving on their themes way before they can. Can I tell you, I spent many many many many many years anxious that my oldest daughter was never gonna get grace, and she did?
Speaker 1:And that redeemed all those years. I kept trying to believe that God was going to do what he was going to do. It's much harder at this place when your kids are younger to try to believe in advance what will only make sense as you look back, that God's gonna help them make movement on their themes. But often, as a parent, we tend to parent out of fear that our kids are not gonna make movement on their themes. Again, story is the best way I can illustrate it.
Speaker 1:And some of you heard me teach, you've heard me talk about this, but my passionate, beautiful, in every sense of the word, middle daughter, for her 4th birthday, wanted a 2 piece bathing suit, and that's all she wanted. It might even have been her 3rd birthday. And I thought over my dead body as she getting that bathing suit. And the next door neighbor, who was a number of years older, kept hearing her say that so she decided to wrap up her 2 piece bathing suit and give it to my daughter. And the old 2 piece bathing suit was her favorite gift on that day.
Speaker 1:Okay? And she put it on and walked around the house like she was full figured, and I'm freaking out. And believe me, I wanted to help her make movement on her themes in that moment. And my wife, in all her wisdom, said it's not that big a deal. Let's let her wear it, and blah blah blah, and we did.
Speaker 1:And later on, she became comfortable with whatever bathing suit she liked, and she didn't have to have a 2 piece and all that kind of stuff. And she can wear 2 piece or not. And it's it's beautiful at this point, but I was really anxious, and I wanted to help her make movement on those themes. So back to the general question, I would say, both are in front of you for sure, and your tendency is gonna be to over focus on the one, help her make movement and minimize those things you're doing. I promise you, for any of you moms out there, a lot of that stuff you're doing from day to day that they say they hate, they're gonna remember really fondly 2030 years from now.
Speaker 1:But you've got to try to believe that now. In fact, my wife is here somewhere and I kept, my wife is incredibly healthy, eats really well. And my girls could complain a lot about the way we ate because it was healthy and good and right in general. And my wife never felt it was good enough, but they complained about that. Now at their age, and as they watch a lot of their friends struggle with eating issues and all that kind of stuff, they are much more generally appreciative of the way dawn has led them.
Speaker 1:But they're 1917 and 15. They're not 7, 9, and 5. Okay? So that's my try to trust a lot of the good structural things you're doing are gonna have its work. And as a parent, you're so dependent on outside help.
Speaker 1:It's incredibly frightening. And I really see that now at the ages of my girls as they begin to move out more. So, alright. Anybody else? Okay.
Speaker 1:Let me say it back to you, so I make sure I understand it. So if you have friends who you sense in general, they're looking for too much from the church and they're kind of easily disappointed. In some ways, it's not legitimate. How is a friend to them? Do I help them?
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's a good question. We say this. This the more you feel, first of all, the responsibility to undo that, the worse you'll help them. Okay?
Speaker 1:So first, you've got to kind of talk yourself down and think I may or may not be some help to them, but I would love to be part of that process. Honestly, I I think the best way to help people, if there's something they intensely struggle with, is to talk about that same theme in a different arena. Like if their focus is often how disappointed they are with the church, I wanna tell you they're living out that same theme in a whole lot of other places. But I would talk to them about it in less threatening places, and then maybe somewhere along the line, help them make some connections. I would also do this.
Speaker 1:We tend to be, when someone over exacerbates a problem, we tend to then hop on them about what they're doing. And oftentimes, what evil does in the way we process things is he always takes a little bit of truth, and he spins it into a much bigger lie in our minds. Okay? So, a little bit of truth is every church has its issues that people are disappointed about. That's true.
Speaker 1:Now, it may be much bigger in their mind, and it may be a 9 in their mind, and you really ascertain it's actually about a 4 or a 5. K. But when you talk to them, you wanna say it's a 2 or 3, because they're saying it's a 9. So now they make it a 12. Alright?
Speaker 1:So what you do is try to agree with a little bit of truth that's there, and you actually agree with them where there's real disappointment. And I think the more they fill you with them in that disappointment on some level over time, that gives you an opportunity to speak into the part where there's deception. But if you always, always, always try to talk to them about the deception, then you've lost them. And quite frankly, there really is some truth based in what they're saying. So if that helps.
Speaker 1:Alright. Anybody else? Alright. Good questions. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah. You asked a couple of different questions. To me, the first question I heard you kind of ask in a large sense is thinking about kind of structural family. And I realized that I have some disappointment and I also see good, but I feel like I go back and forth between I'm really disappointed or it's good, and how do I come to a place where it's kind of more integrated?
Speaker 1:Is that okay. And then we'll if we remember, we'll come back to the other question. Okay? First of all, I want to say this, we have a kind of meck Christianity view of the Christian life. We really want things now.
Speaker 1:And in general, life tends to go 0 to kind of 22 like this, and then you kind of make it through college, and it kind of inverts. And you get out on your own, and you get a job, and you get a house, and you get married, and you have kids. And life becomes a whole lot more weighty. And now you really kind of need to learn how to do the gospel on your own for the first time, and that's kind of hard. And so you navigate, and at about 40, in general, if you're doing the gospel halfway well, you come to some rest.
Speaker 1:Okay? So I first of all, I want to say, give yourself a little bit of permission that that tension's gonna exist a while longer. But if you see yourself moving where there's moments that it does feel more integrated, like you can be with your family and feel some of the sadness, and yet participate in what's good. And there's a real mixture as you're there, maybe not all the time, then I would just celebrate that change. Okay?
Speaker 1:And just kind of be patient that you're growing. The the the anxiety for me would be more as if you were saying it was all good or all bad. You're already making good movement that you can feel both. And there's real, and this is normal about any aspect of life, like my daughter who's headed to college. I've been so kind of just grateful or, yeah, grateful that this summer, she's been able to name really well some of the losses she's going through.
Speaker 1:That she'll never feel as close to some of her friends again, and there were some hopes in those relationships that are not, you know, not gonna happen, or with her sisters, or she's been able to articulate well some of her disappointment. And then the next day, she's able to talk about how excited she is going to college. I know that both of those realities are true. So maturity, as a believer, is being able to talk about both sides of an issue and not feel schizophrenic. To realize that that's just a part of us making sense of life.
Speaker 1:So I think that being there, you're making really good movement. I would say the only thing I would add is kind of what I said earlier, where you're cultivating relationships that can speak into that and help you. That when you're really down can remind you last week you kind of were enjoying not not right away. They need to be there with you, but kind of bring you back and kind of help you live better in that tension. I guess that would be the other thing I would add.
Speaker 1:I just know this, and and I think what's normal for a lot of people is when they get outside their family to go through a period where they essentially feel the disappointment. Because in general, whether it's a structural biological family or structural church family, we tend not to do well about talking what's missing and what's wrong and what's difficult. So oftentimes, you don't feel real permission till you go away to college or to an adult to begin admitting what was really wrong in your family or feeling that. So sometimes there is an overdeveloped sense of that and that can make you afraid that you're gonna live there. But as you kinda walk through that and people help you with that and God meets you there, that tends to soften, and then you get back to kind of this tension.
Speaker 1:So do you remember the second question? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if you're talking about those people you're in relationship with, and I'm kind of acknowledging and feeling some of the disappointment.
Speaker 1:And I kinda wanna know how to work with that to, whether it's that relationship or other relationships, have relationships where I'm there's some real disappointment because it's gonna be there, but they're safe relationships and they're helping me grow and I don't know. Is that a good way to say it? How do you know the difference? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, again, I'm gonna say this. We're afraid in general, I don't know. To oftentimes be strong and intentional sometimes in relationships. Well, sometimes we're all over the place where we can cut people off really easily or we endure too much with people or whatever. I wanna first of all, I think you need some permission if you're and again, I would bring community in in that decision making process.
Speaker 1:But if someone really is being unsafe and it's not the best relationship, then you need to take some permission to move away from that. Okay? And then, I think the way you navigate is the same way we really talked about family. If you can do both, feel the good in the friendship and the not so good, and you can celebrate in sorrow, then you've just gotta hope the Lord's gonna help you keep moving into discernment. And when I work with people in general, I see people growing in the gospel where their relationships get more healthy if they're really open to both, and they're trying to walk that out with the Lord.
Speaker 1:So what's hard is we feel like there's another way we should do it. And I've just found after 40 plus years of walking with the Lord that, like when he said without faith it's impossible to please him, he really wasn't kidding. He continues to ask us to walk through attention that we hate, and he keeps asking us to believe that he is good, and he is kind, and he's moving us towards something better. Whether it's those friendships or the family relationships, the more kind of we're accepting the need to walk by faith and live under some tension. And that God will kind of grow us into good.
Speaker 1:The more peace we have as we navigate through that. And it's really important in whatever ways you're growing. If it's in your family of origin or with your friends, that as you're growing, that those things be celebrated and enjoyed. So alright. Anybody else?
Speaker 1:Leaving that Yeah. Yeah. Let me say this. If it's in general, the way we're talking about it is it's a significant issue where they have an they have a difficulty attaching. Alright?
Speaker 1:And let me say this, and and I can't say in every instance, but in general, that's not going to come out of a vacuum. And what we really tend to believe as believers about change is that when we're when we realize that we have negative impact on others, that's called repentance, that's what often helps us change. Well, someone who has a hard time attaching is often because they really do judge the consistently the log in their brother's eye more than the or the splinter of the brother's eye more than the log in their own eye. So that type of change can be really difficult because the normal way we change, which is repentance, in some ways may be much harder for them. And so, if I was talking to that person, I mean, it's gonna so much matter on their context and what they're presenting to me.
Speaker 1:But I would say I mean, this is kind of a more general rule of anybody. I'm gonna try to come alongside them, identify with them, enter into their world, understand where it's hard for them. And as they feel some level of acceptance, maybe help them begin to judge the log in their own eye. But oftentimes, a person like that is I then become the counselor that they distance themselves from, or the friend they distance themselves from. So to that person, I don't know that there's a lot you can say.
Speaker 1:I think what I would say to you in a church community is wise. You're gonna have those people in your congregation. And the more they feel like they have to become an immediate connected part of the congregation, the sooner they're gonna leave. And you almost have to and it's gonna be different. And probably as you grow over the church, let some of those people exist out on the periphery for a while, and maybe community that just accepts them where they're at helps them soften in to more.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you've ever seen. It's kind of, it's probably not cheesy. It's just not well done, but it's deeply meaningful. It's a focus on the family film, A Man Called Norman. I don't know if anyone's ever seen that.
Speaker 1:But this guy was kind of like the kind of neighborhood weirdo, who kind of talked to himself, and it was unintelligible language, and everybody kind of in the town thought he had a mental illness. Well, this and he lived in a really dilapidated dirty house. Anyway, this guy just begins to over time feel the Lord telling him to pursue this guy, and I mean he goes from little relationship to more relationship, to cleaning his house, to like really incarnating the gospel. And over the over time, this guy really becomes more normal. And like the the persistence and the grace and the patience of this guy really helps him change.
Speaker 1:And I just think we to be a good community, we're gonna have those people in our community and trying to meet them where they are without totally changing, obviously, the structure of how you do things is really the best you can do. But talking to that person specifically, again, is gonna be really hard because on some level, we all know unless we can judge the law in our own eye, we really can't change. And, we will only do that to the degree that we can see outside ourselves and listen to people speak into us. And, oftentimes, the defenses with a person like that are so high that that's a difficult process. So alright.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Parents I know. Yeah. Yeah. Let me and that's that really for many many people becomes an issue as you get married, and you really want to begin to leave and cleave.
Speaker 1:Let me just say this, And oftentimes, not always, but in general in general, it's the mom who has the issue with leaving and cleaving. And part of that is because of her relational desires. And for a mom, when she gets a child, it's kind of like jackpot. I've got 247 relationship that can't leave. Like I'm in heaven.
Speaker 1:Alright? And we tend to make idols of anything that gives us life. And it's impossible as a parent to not make a child an idol. It's impossible, And any parent who can't be honest about that is crazy. Okay.
Speaker 1:Now, there's some hard hearted people who move from from church to church no. Who really don't see that they make children idle or they really don't make a child an idol because they have such difficulty relationally. But in general, we do that. So anyway, we grow up and we kind of are As a child grows, we get this child revolving around us in general doing what they want, and they're there for us on some level to meet our needs. So the more persistent a parent's been about that, and the more the child has come through, the harder the leaving and cleaving is going to be.
Speaker 1:Alright? So my simple way I would tell you to do this is to not have a discussion with the parent about what they're doing, because what they're doing is not rational. Alright. It is pre rational behavior. And the majority of our behavior is pre rational.
Speaker 1:Alright? Especially, the more fleshly we are. So trying to have a conversation with them about it will only exacerbate it. So what you want to do is begin to speak to them in the way you relate to them. So when you used to talk to your mom, as example, 2 or 3 times a week, and you're married, and your relational world's being filled a little bit more by your husband, and you might talk talk to her once a week.
Speaker 1:And when she calls you on Tuesday, and you've already tried to have the rational discussion 2 or 3 times about not calling you so much, and she hasn't learned, you don't call her back on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. You call her back Saturday, and you're prepared for her to ask you why it took you so long to call. And what you're gonna be determined to do is act like that it's normal as a married woman to talk to my mom once a week. And so, you do you do maybe a couple things. Like you just change the subject and say, are you gonna watch the game this weekend?
Speaker 1:You just don't acknowledge the question. Right? Or, sometimes you answer a question with a question and you simply say, mom I'm curious about why you ask. And, if she says, well, I left you a message on Tuesday. You say, you really did.
Speaker 1:You left me a message on Tuesday. And then she says, but you didn't return my call. And you say, you're right. I really didn't return your call. You keep acting like it's normal that you call her back on Saturday, but don't have the discussion about why you're doing that because it's not rational.
Speaker 1:Now, trust me on this. Alright? If you grow in the confidence to speak to your parents in the way you live, they're going to be wounded. And it's not an easy wound, as I watch my daughter leave. Okay.
Speaker 1:So let them be wounded, and let them take out some of their frustration on you, but don't call them back. And that wounding over time will help them maybe, most likely, hopefully, realize that they've done exactly with God what they've done with you. Because God wasn't manageable. Because see, God will be worshiped, and he will be loved, and he will be adored, but he will not be controlled or used. And they turned away from him to you.
Speaker 1:And so when you won't be controlled or used you point them back to the very god they need to get to know better. And maybe over time, that wound softens and changes them where you're able to have that discussion you weren't able to have. And when you kept trying to have it, it just made it harder. Okay? So I hope that helps.
Speaker 1:I would just tell you from personal experience that we had that difficulty, my wife and I. And her mom said to me after 10 years, at about 2 or 3 years, I heard the Lord tell me, stop apologizing to your mother-in-law, because that's how I dealt with conflict back then was just apologize, even though I didn't mean it. And I just felt like I'm gonna kind of honor your immaturity by, you know, you're not gonna listen to really what's true. So I'll just say I'm sorry and get through this. I didn't really mean it.
Speaker 1:The Lord said, stop saying you're sorry. And things got more difficult with my mother-in-law. And so, at about 10 years, she said to me and Dawn, we were there. Hey, can I talk to you for a minute? And I thought, what did I do now?
Speaker 1:And she said, the Lord has really shown me that he has brought you into our family to help me see my sin. And I was shocked. And my wife was shocked. And soon after that, she had some light strokes, and we've not been able to enjoy that change as much. But I think in all eternity, the fact that we got there before she was able to maybe in realness make some of those changes.
Speaker 1:That what was grown during that period will be with her through all eternity. Even though we didn't get to enjoy that. So it's a hard thing to make listen. The scriptures say very very little about directly about marriage, but it talks about leaving and cleaving. Like this book that you need.
Speaker 1:So whatever it talks about is really important and fundamental, and you're gonna come back to it again and again and again. So if you have leaving and cleaving issues in your present marital family relationship, that makes tons of sense. Okay? Alright. That's enough on that.
Speaker 1:I hope. Anybody else? Yeah. We say this if they and then if I don't say it back right. Let me know.
Speaker 1:But I'm thinking about a person who there's really some difficulty with their structural family that's really adding pain, and they want to get closer to their kind of relational family, which would be the church, and that's difficult. What do I say to that person? Let me say this. In first Peter 5, I'll back up. Alright.
Speaker 1:There's 3 places where the New Testament speaks directly to kind of fighting evil. One place is Ephesians 6, which is your whole armor of God. Okay? The other two places are first Peter 5 and James 4. Both of those passages start this way.
Speaker 1:God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Now, what I have found is the Lord asks us to walk paths that confront our self reliance. Alright? And so when it says, God as opposed to the probably who gives grace to the humble, here's what I'm gonna contextualize that for us today. All of us who've depended on our gifts to make our life work, at some point will fall apart, and you're gonna have to trust the Lord now to walk a path that's really scary.
Speaker 1:And then it says, cast all your anxiety upon him because he cares for you. When you have to walk a path that's scary, you have a lot of anxiety, so pour it out on God. And then it says, the evil one comes in. When a person's vulnerable, listen. Evil doesn't hunt you when you're doing okay.
Speaker 1:He comes in when you're vulnerable. So a person in that situation is gonna be especially vulnerable. Evil's gonna come into shame and condemn, and then it says resist evil and he'll flee. But then it says, consider your brothers all through the world who are going through similar difficulty. Or in first Peter, I think 4 it says, don't be surprised when this fiery trial has come upon you as something strange is happening.
Speaker 1:So what I would say to that person first is this. That is such a normal, normal, normal, normal place for a believer in the gospel. There are many of us, if not most of us, who've come to appreciate the love in the gospel because at moments we weren't well surrounded by that in our own structural families. Or maybe we're even more hungry for the gospel because of what's happened in our structural family. I want to say that's more normal than less normal.
Speaker 1:So to that person, the first thing I would say is you're not alone. And you're often gonna be feel the temptation and the bullying in your mind that you are alone, which then is gonna whenever you go through suffering that can't be explained like, why am I so alone and no one else is? That exacerbates self contempt. I must be doing something wrong or else I wouldn't be here. So that person's gotta try to believe I'm not alone, and I'm not doing something wrong.
Speaker 1:I am in a place where there's difficulty that I've got to try to trust the Lord over time to get me out of. I guess I would say this. Since we're gonna say for that person to, kind of try to lean into their relational or church family more. The first thing I would usually do with that person is give them a permission to take what I would call an emotional time out from their structural family. A lot of times that person still is going back and trying to get from their structural family what they can't.
Speaker 1:And what that does oftentimes, like your themes, the things that they're really based on your gifts. So, I don't know. Let's say you're really funny and somehow that worked in your family growing up, and that's where you felt a lot of meaning, and then you used that when you got outside the family. In these painful moments where the family's not doing great, you're gonna wanna be funny, and they're gonna shame that, and that's gonna exacerbate your self contempt. So I would say, you've gotta take an emotional time out and try not to be that person in your family.
Speaker 1:And you're gonna feel weird because you're gonna be feeling a little more distant. You may still show up for some things and do some things, but you're not as actively trying to get anything from your family. So that that really facilitates some healing in your heart, because if you keep trying to go back and you're not gonna get anything, that just keeps you beat up. Alright? So, I try to help people understand what an emotional time out is where they're still with their family.
Speaker 1:Maybe not as much and participating, but they're grieving what they're never gonna get. Okay. Now, then we move over here to church family, and I kind of would go back a little bit to what I said, where you you can't anticipate that the church family is going to take away your loneliness. And sometimes, the church family exacerbates your loneliness as any community would. Listen.
Speaker 1:If you were on a softball team, and the softball team had some people who were doing well relationally, you would leave that softball meeting disappointed because other people are getting what you want. But somehow, when that same thing happens in church, it's the church's fault. Because the church is supposed to be better than that. Well, it's not. It's like everything else.
Speaker 1:So you've kind of got to accept that the church is gonna, in some ways, help you remember your loneliness. Not solve it all, And then, you've got to try to think, what are some small ways? I'm not going to make this all up in one swoop. So what are some small ways that I can begin to increase my level of connectedness with the church? If you haven't been doing a small group, because you haven't and it's a risk to try to start doing it, what I would say to that person is, please don't especially if there were issues in your structural family.
Speaker 1:Remember how I said earlier about the person in the church have to pay attention to that person's story. So if you join a small group, and you don't feel well connected after the 1st year, I wouldn't be mad at yourself or the the group. I would be like, that kind of makes sense. But as I continue to endure with them, I wanna hope that we become closer. And you just try to celebrate.
Speaker 1:I took a risk to join under real vulnerability, under real need to enjoy a group. And now, I feel a little bit apart. Some people smile a little bit more when they see me. I'm learning the norms of the group a little bit. I have a little bit more structural family in my life than I did a year ago.
Speaker 1:This year, I want to move a little bit more into that, and maybe do this. But you're taking some manageable steps, and you're trying to practice at that, and then celebrate how you're growing closer. But again, and this is my, you know, if you talk to me, I mean, it's gonna get back to the kingdom of God grows slow like a tiny mustard seed into a large tree or like yeast and bread. It start small and permeates its whole dough. We want more than we're ever gonna get in this world.
Speaker 1:And so, even as you're growing closer to this church family and it's doing it's helping you with some things you don't have, you're still gonna have to sorrow that along the way. And I hope your church sorrows that along the way by admitting they have some things that kind of stand in the way of that as well. And at least then that keeps you connected. But where you think they should be doing better and they're mad that you think that or like where you can just be honest about that and you're living in a broken community, that keeps you more connected. And, maybe, over time you could grow into that.
Speaker 1:So, I hope that helps a little. Alright. Anybody else? We're getting close on time. So, if there's one more question, I'll be glad to anybody?
Speaker 1:That's probably way plenty for a night. Let me say this. Really do have a marriage book if you're interested. I'd love to sell a couple. If I don't, it's really okay.
Speaker 1:But And I can do cash, check, or charge. Okay? You wanna say anything else?
Jeffrey Heine:Thanks, Gordon. Let me just close this in a prayer. And then if y'all would, if you see the black chairs that fold up, if y'all would where's our where should we put them? We could stack them in. Just lean them against that column right there.
Jeffrey Heine:Or never mind.
Speaker 1:It's the car. The car is the front.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright. We'll we will put them right through this door. Right here. How about that? Okay.
Jeffrey Heine:Sounds great. Alright. Let's pray. God, we thank you for our time that we can have tonight, that we could grow in our knowledge of you through your word. Thank you for Gordon and the truth that you spoke through him and I.
Jeffrey Heine:Pray that those things will resonate with us and that they would grow as we meditate on them throughout this week and the weeks ahead. So, Lord, we just thank you and we give you glory in your
