How To Love People You Don’t Like

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Let's pray together.

Lord, when we say it is well, what we're saying is that you are good and what you do is right and can be trusted.

And so do in us today, Lord, whatever you want to do.

Holy Spirit, we just place ourselves down at your disposal and say, speak, Lord, your servants are listening.

Say something that has our name on it.

Give us illumination and understanding into our lives and the rhythm of our lives.

Not just what we do, but why we do.

Let's go deeper today, Holy Spirit.

Why we do the things that we do.

We want to understand that, Lord, so that our life can be a representation of who you are and how you are to everyone around us.

Our immediate family, our extended family, people we work with, people we live around.

Lord, when we say it is well, that includes us.

We say that you make glorious things.

And we're part of those glorious things that you make.

So give us insight and application today.

We pray in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to Matthew chapter 22.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 22, I want to talk to you this morning.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

We've been going through the Gospel of John.

We're taking a break from John.

And we'll pick up in the new year as we get ready for Advent.

But I want to talk to you this morning about how to love people you don't like, how to love people you don't like.

And if you you may say, hey, where did you get this idea?

Actually, I was thinking, hey, uh about a month ago, I was like, I think after John 9, I'm gonna take a break because John 10 starts a new emphasis.

And so uh we have a couple Sundays here, uh, but I got a phone call from a lady that I used to see for counseling about a year ago.

Uh she started making great progress.

She said, Hey, I think I'm good.

I don't think I need to come see you anymore.

And I said, That's wonderful.

I don't want you to become addicted to counseling.

And so, but she called uh about 10 days ago and she said, Hey, I think I need to come see you.

And she was kind of trembling.

And I said, Is everything okay?

And she said, Well, I mean, yeah, but but but I said, Hey, well, what okay, what happened?

She goes, Well, I'm not a bad person.

I said, Uh-oh.

I didn't say that loud, but in my head, I thought, uh-oh, I'm not a bad person.

And she said, Well, I was at the store and and I shop at HEB, and and I'm not a bad person.

I said, We've established you're not a bad person.

Why are you calling me?

She said, Well, I I like a glass of wine a couple times a week.

It just kind of I said, it's great.

And she said, So I shop at HEB.

They have a great wine selection.

I'm like, well, okay, talk to me.

What are we?

Why are we talking about the wine selection at HEB?

And she said, Well, I usually, when I when I get groceries, I get like a couple bottles, and that lasts me for like a month.

And I'm like, you don't know the friends I know.

Um and she said, but I got up to the to the cash pressure to pay out, and I had six bottles of wine in my cart.

What is going on?

I was like, How did those get here?

Because the lady goes, Are you having a party?

And she's like, No one's getting here yet.

And I said, Let me guess, you're hosting Thanksgiving this year.

And she says, Yeah, how'd you know?

I said, Because the clinical term for that behavior is called anticipatory grief.

You, you, your body is preparing you for what's coming emotionally.

And she goes, I'm not a heavy drinker.

I said, Relax, you're okay.

Okay, I I got two openings this week, but you want she came in and we just talked, and she got the end of it, and she goes, This was very helpful.

You should help other people with this.

And so I was like, Great, all right.

So I want to help you with this, okay?

This is not like a group counseling session, this is a biblical truth that I promise you, if you could just get your head and your heart around this today, it would it it would add momentum to your life.

You say, Well, what do you mean?

One of the things that she realized is that uh how do you love people that you don't like?

It's not, well, see the better in them and aim higher and blah, blah, blah.

I'm not Joel Osteen.

I don't say those kind of things, okay?

And so I said, we gotta be more structural than that.

But it involves, here's what it involves, and here's what I'm gonna talk about.

It involves loving people you don't like.

It's not any outward or external thing.

It really involves and is centered in learning to love yourself.

And and what some people call self-love or learning to love yourself.

So let me tell you what I don't mean by that.

Uh let me be clear.

When I say loving yourself, this is not an introspective prioritization of yourself above everybody else.

Uh, it isn't this narcissistic self-centeredness or and self-interest.

We're seeing that in students because of the the the advent of social media.

Uh, students are narcissistic and they're also depressed.

Because as good as they feel about themselves, they never feel good enough to get all the likes that everybody else is getting.

But that's not what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about when I talk about loving yourself, stay with me, men, is accepting what the gospel says about you as much as what it says about everybody else.

Loving yourself means accepting yourself as a redeemed person.

Therefore, I'm no longer working to secure anything.

I'm not looking at people to fix anything in me because I've been redeemed by the one who knows me best.

This is a centering reality in the life of a person who has come to love themselves.

Now, at this point, you should be thinking, where do you get this kind of crazy talk?

Out of the Bible.

Matthew 22, start reading verse 34.

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?

And he said to him, You shall love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

This is the greatest and first commandment.

And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments depend all of the law and prophets.

Now, what Jesus says there is radically consequential because he says, On these two commandments, hinge all of the law and prophets.

That's a reference to the Old Testament.

He says, if you want to fulfill all of the requirements of the Old Testament, love God and love other people.

But that's not just what he says, because in the text, you see, here's the fruit of loving yourself.

We'll just jump into this.

The fruit of loving yourself biblically is four things this morning.

Number one, loving ourselves means that we're learning not to settle.

Loving yourself means learning not to settle.

You say, what do you mean?

Uh when you think about it, there's two commands and one assumption in this passage.

And we're familiar with the commands, but we're not very familiar with the assumption.

So what happens is we settle for a life that's built around and fueled by our just deep desire.

Listen carefully, okay?

Listen carefully.

Please do not hear what I'm not saying.

Because we focus on the two commands.

Our eyes are drawn to that.

I just want to ask you to take a pen and in verse 39 underline two simple words.

In verse 39, the last two words, as yourself.

As yourself.

Because Jesus says, and a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The two commands are love God, love your neighbor.

The assumption, it is not the Bible does not command us to self-love.

It's worse than that.

The Bible assumes you love yourself.

It is the standard for how you love your neighbor.

Okay?

And Jesus just kind of, that's why he says, as you love yourself.

It's just an assumption.

But because we're familiar with the commands and we're not familiar with the assumption, so we settle for a life that's built around and fueled by our deep desire to love God and love people.

And it sounds noble and biblical and incredible.

But but here's all of a sudden this question comes up.

What if you're looking in the realm of loving God and loving people for what can only be experienced in the realm of loving yourself?

Let me ask that again and I'll demonstrate.

What if you're looking in the realm of loving God and loving people?

And what you're looking for can only be experienced, tasted in the realm of actually learning to love yourself, like the Bible talks about.

Because, see, here's the reality: you can love God and you can love people, and you'll wake up one day empty and bitter and angry and disconnected.

And it's not because the church has failed you, it's not because the church is full of hypocrites, it's because you never learn to do what the Bible assumes we already do, and that's love yourself.

Because if you don't learn to love yourself, here's what happens: everything in your life becomes transactional, not relational.

You keep score, you you have a you have a running grid about how out of balance, you know, I'm always doing for my girlfriends, they're not doing for me.

And so you're always looking for new girlfriends, or you're always looking for for new buddies to hang out with.

That's transactional, not relational.

And so when I say you, and I'm not saying don't love God and don't love people, I'm just saying not everything you need can be found in those two areas.

And that gets me kicked out of the preacher's club because you're supposed to say, oh, just love God and love people, and everything will be fine.

You can love God and love people.

And if you never get that standard established of loving yourself, you will eventually run out of gas.

Because loving God and loving people is not doing it for you anymore.

Matter of fact, if you're not careful, you'll start resenting God and resenting people, you'll disconnect, move out in the country, just cash out, retire off somewhere, live off the grid, and be a loner the last 20 years of your life.

And never understand, hey, what's motivating my isolation?

Why is my wife lonely?

And I just neglect that and just insist on isolation.

We don't need anybody, baby.

This is all we need.

You know why you say that?

Because it's all you've ever had.

And you lay there and you're kind of like, man, something's missing here.

I'm here to say that unless you learn to love ourselves properly, we engage in these behaviors, loving God and loving people improperly with these unconscious motives that set us up for deep, deep, bitter disappointment.

Unless you think I'm getting at you today, let me tell you who's the worst at this: preachers.

They're the worst at loving themselves.

They love God, they love people.

That's why a lot of preachers retire bitter, cynical, jaded old men.

And they have a list of all the offenses that their churches, how the churches wronged them and didn't come through for them and what they didn't do for them.

If you're having a problem following me so far, let me just ask you this simple question.

To whom have you given the power to decide how you should be loved?

To whom have you given the power to decide how you should be loved?

This is why I'm not a big fan of dating in high school, and for sure not in middle school.

Uh I have two daughters, and I told both of my daughters, hey, both of them, one of them currently goes to high school across the street, the other one graduated there.

I said, as soon as you find someone over there, do you think it's a good idea to give them the power to decide how you should be loved?

You bring him home.

I want to meet him.

And they were like, in my school?

Yeah.

There's no one.

Okay, we just freed up your social calendar for four years.

But see, it it that it's easy to chuckle at that.

But if you're not careful, men, some of us have to say, hey, to whom have I given the power to decide how I should be loved?

It's your company.

Some of you ladies, it's your mom.

See, you do this because we believe that if this person loves me, then I'll be okay.

But what happens when they end up not loving you?

The only message that you can assume is that you're not okay.

Because if I was okay, they would have loved me.

They didn't love me.

They're awesome, and they chose not to love me.

What's wrong with me?

See, that that occupies a lot of space in you unless you've established this standard that says, you know what, because I love myself properly, I can love my neighbor, and I'm not keeping score on the transaction.

Here's the second fruit of loving yourself.

Loving ourselves moves us from duty to desire.

It moves us from duty to desire.

I'm not saying you won't be required to do some things in this life, but your life will stop feeling like an errand for you're running for everybody else.

It'll just stop feeling like, you know what?

I'm living vicariously, I'm living for everybody else, but this is not meaningful to me.

You no longer show up in relationships based on duty or guilt or expectation.

Can you imagine one of your sister-in-laws or your sisters calling you, lady, and saying, hey, now you're gonna make mom's potato salad recipe this year, right?

No, no, no, because I'm I'm no longer trapped in duty or guilt or manipulation or your expectations of me.

I am going to relate to everybody and everything out of a place called desire.

Now, let me just confess: the word desire is a four-letter word in the church.

I say desire, and some of you are like, um I'm telling Jesus you said that.

And I'm just saying, please tell him, because Jesus knows what the Bible knows, and that you and I, and it's this, that you and I were created to live out of this place of desire.

I'm gonna give you a biblical context.

If you got your Bibles, turn to John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

I'll get there in a minute.

Uh, but I'm gonna tell you about what happens in Luke chapter 10, about verse 38 to 42.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

There's these two women, Mary and Martha, their sisters, and Jesus is at their house, and Mary is just sitting at Jesus' feet because Jesus is talking, and he's just kind of, she's just hanging on every word, and she's just like, oh, she's not even taking notes.

She's just drinking it in with her eyes.

She is just like, Yes, please don't stop talking, Jesus, because my heart is pounding in my chest.

I love every word that comes out of your mouth.

I'm not gonna live by bread alone, I'm gonna live by what you say.

And about that time, Martha, her sister, comes bustling out of the kitchen, and Martha's like, Lord, don't you care my sister's left me to do all the work?

Tell her to help me.

Because Martha assumes that Jesus thinks like she thinks, and that everyone should be like she is.

And she's like, Lord, she starts with an assumption, not a question.

Lord, don't you care?

My sister's left me to do all the work.

And Jesus' short answer is, no, not really.

But he says it like Jesus says stuff.

He says in Luke 10, he says, Martha, Martha, you're upset and worried about many things, but only one thing is necessary.

Mary has chosen that which is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

Mary's living out of her desire.

Martha's living out of her duty.

And that's in Luke chapter 10.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

Now, if you're in John chapter 12, I want you to notice just a few words right off the bat.

John 12 · chapter mention

John chapter 12, six days before the Passover.

John 12 · chapter mention

This is one week from the end of Jesus' life.

Let's just see if anything's changed.

Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead, so they gave a dinner for him there.

Martha served.

Imagine that.

It's all she knows how to do.

Oh, Jesus, I make cookies.

Don't you love cookies?

Jesus doesn't even like cookies.

Jesus loves desire.

Jesus loves people that relate to him and just kind of like, I am so into you.

Whatever song they put up there on the screen, I'm gonna sing it.

I don't care if I'm learning it as I go.

I'm like the kid in choir.

Banana, banana, banana.

Yeah, it's well.

Woo! Yes.

Some of you started singing it as well.

The old hymn, and they kind of went in that Bethel version, like, oh, yeah, where we're going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But your heart was like, yes, yes, my mouth can't know this, but my heart says yes to all of that.

That's because the desire in you is the longing to express itself.

Martha's just ruled by duty.

Martha served.

Watch this.

Here, let me tell you this.

When God sees somebody, when God finds somebody that relates to him not out of duty or obligation or expectation or guilt, but out of desire, look at what he does.

He confides in that person.

He reveals things to that person.

He doesn't reveal to the duty-bound servant.

He said, What do you mean?

John 12.

Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table.

Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.

The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?

He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.

And having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

Jesus said, Leave her alone, so they may keep she may so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.

For the poor you'll always have with you, but you will not always, you do not always have me.

Hey, look at me.

When I talk about God revealing more to people who relate to him out of desire than just duty, here's what I mean.

The next chapter starts the crucifixion narrative.

Jesus washes the disciples' feet at the Last Supper.

He's getting ready to go to the cross.

We're six days before Passover.

We're six days from this thing all going down.

Jesus dies as the lamb that was slain from the very foundation of the world.

Nobody in the room gets it.

Judas is thinking about the money and oh, what about this?

And Mary is slathering 2D fruity Vaseline on Jesus and wiping it with her hair.

And she's kind of down there.

She's like, This is not a problem, is it, Jesus?

Is this making you awkward?

And Jesus is like, No, it's not making me awkward at all.

Matter of fact, six days later, when they nail him to a cross, he probably still smells that way.

Them Roman soldiers are putting nails in his hands and feet, going, What's that you're wearing?

And Jesus is like, That's understanding.

Go ahead.

Do what you gotta do.

See, desire is a dangerous thing.

We are scared of desire.

Here's why.

Because desire makes you do crazy stuff.

And we don't want, we're like, hey, I don't want to be, I don't want to be, no, hey, oh no.

Easy, easy.

Loving, learning to love yourself moves you from duty to desire.

What do you mean?

Let me say it like this: to love yourself is to say to God who loved you first, I believe you.

I believe the gospel.

The Bible says that we love God because He first loved us.

God first loved us to say, hey, it's okay for you to love you.

Matter of fact, when God first loves us, and you say, Oh, I don't love me because you don't understand, I messed up and I did this and I did that, and 1997 I did that, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And God just kind of says, You don't think I know all of that?

All of that just magnifies the fact that I love you and makes my love for you filled with wonder.

And what we do is we say, No, matter of fact, I'm such a bad counselor.

I said to the lady that came to see me, because she's like, I, you know, I got six bottles of wine.

We're getting it ready, getting to the end.

And I said, I want you to put your hands on your shoulders like this and repeat after me.

I love me, some me.

And she said, Oh, I'm not gonna do that.

And I said, Yeah, so you ain't gotta touch yourself.

Just keep your hands folded, whatever.

You can just bow your head and say it's a prayer, and it's just a confession, God, I love me, some me.

She goes, No, that's just wrong.

And because I'm such a bad counselor, I said, No, the exact opposite.

Because you grew up in the church, didn't you?

And she says, Yeah, how'd you know?

I said, Because you hate yourself and you think it's spiritual.

It's the lazy man's shortcut to holiness.

I love Jesus so much I hate myself.

And then Jesus says, What do you know about you that I don't know about you?

Because I love you.

Should I feel stupid for loving you?

It's the height of spiritual pride.

Oh, Jesus, I'm just a worm in the dirt.

I'm just scum, God.

Oh, I just I can't believe God hadn't killed me and thrown me into hell.

What?

And he's like, I first loved you.

And what is your response to the first love of God?

If your response to the initiating, I'll go first, love of God is to hate yourself, you don't understand the gospel.

Mary understood the gospel.

And so God revealed things to her.

So I just say, secondly, the fruit of loving yourself, as creepy as it sounds, I get it, it is as you move from duty to desire.

The third fruit is just loving ourselves, means we move from roles to responsibility.

We move from roles to responsibility.

What do I mean?

I mean that in our family of origin, in our extended family, that most of us in this room, we we have historically we've played a role.

Uh there there's a way of being, and you continue to play the role.

Matter of fact, over time, your family system depends on you continuing to play that role, even if you're not that person anymore.

It's things your mom says to you, and you're like, Mom, I was that way when I was 20.

I'm 37 now.

Can you please let me out?

No.

Because your mom, if you change, then your mom has to admit she never changed.

And your mom ain't gonna do that.

She's just not.

Good woman probably loves Jesus, not going to do that.

Which is why she asks you questions, she doesn't really ask you questions.

She invites you to agree with her.

She says things like, Well, since you guys aren't coming for Thanksgiving, I'm sure you're coming for Christmas, right?

You're like, is that a question, mom?

What what?

Or, hey, you're making my potato salad recipe this year, aren't you?

And what you you morph into a little seven-year-old girl with pigtails and go, Yes, I am, mother.

But the woman in you says, No, we really we don't like that as much.

I'm gonna make something else that everyone could enjoy.

Oh!

Or you say, hey, mom, have you ever noticed there's 10 pounds of that left over?

But we make it every year.

Can we can we find something maybe that's maybe a happy medium?

You say, I I don't know what you mean.

Uh let me give you an example of what I mean.

Uh by the way, to remain compliant, and what I'm not, I'm not saying be some vigilante uh to your family this holiday season.

Uh not at all.

But if you choose to do that, please film it.

I'd like to see it.

Um let me say this to remain compliant to this role is to engage in self sabotage.

Let me say that again.

To remain compliant to this role in your family system is to just you're participating in your own destruction.

You're basically you're giving your permission to an outcome that you hate.

So it's important that we understand.

Of the roles we play, uh, and the roles that other people play in our family.

So I brought some, I just wrote these.

I sat down in my office this week and just wrote down a list of just the roles that I see people play in their family, and here they are.

Uh, you can just you can take a picture, don't try to write this down.

I'll give you a brief description out of all of them.

The air traffic controller, that's the person that's in charge of everybody.

This person is the general manager of the universe.

Hey, you're bringing two pecan pies and one pumpkin, and Susie's bringing bread and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And if someone says, hey, we've had it at your house for the past five years, can we have it in our house?

We got a new house, and we kind of want to bless our family, and we want to show our house off.

Nothing wrong with that.

Oh, but we always have it in my house.

This is the person that has to be in charge.

And typically it's the person in your family that makes the most money, and they think they're being benevolent because you know, hey, hey, we're gonna do it this way because I'm paying for it.

No, no, you're paying for it so you can have your way.

That's the air traffic controller.

Uh, the accountant is the person that's just expected to pay.

Doesn't volunteer to pay, just expects to pay.

Uh by the way, here's how dysfunctional family can be.

That's me and my family, my extended family.

And I make the least amount of money of everybody in my family.

Now, my friends are kind of like, well, why do they ask you?

Because I ain't got two ex-wives I'm paying child support to.

My brother's making a lot of money, but like NBA players, they spend a lot of money.

And so this happened this week.

My wife said to me this week, You're kind of redneckish.

I'm like, Well, she goes, You get kind of chippy because I'm just like, I love my family.

They drive me crazy.

Two years ago, this month, okay, my dad died.

My dad had 20 acres in East Texas.

He said, I want you boys to have that divided up.

So it's like, hey, there's four of us, so we get like five acres, just under five acres each.

I said to my oldest brother, hey man, dad live with you.

You can have my part of the land.

And my motives are pure.

And then after that, I thought, that's one less connection to these people.

The Lord moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

And so, that's two years ago.

My brothers, oh man, thank you so much.

I saw we got to sign anything.

No, no.

My word, I'm yay as yay, nay is nay.

My word is my bond, okay?

But I'll sign whatever I gotta sign.

Two years ago, this week, I get a text.

Hey man, taxes are coming due on dad's land.

You're gonna be able to pay your part?

I text back, I no longer own land in East Texas.

Oh, I was just checking to see if you wanted to help out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have another brother that my mom lives on Social Security and has for years.

I have another brother that borrows money from my mother and never pays her back.

And then a month or two later, my mom will call.

This is called triangulation.

My brother mooches off my mom.

My mom calls me and says, Hey, I can tell by the tone of her voice.

I'm like, Mom, what's going on?

Well, I'm wondering if you can loan me$400.

Mom, you're my mother.

I don't loan you money.

I'll give you money.

What's going on?

Well, we're a little short on electric, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I ask, have you loaned money to blink?

And she's like, Oh, well.

And then I got to complete the triangle.

I got to call my brother and say, Why don't you meet me on the side of the road somewhere between here and East Texas?

He's like, Oh, that ain't funny.

I'm not kidding.

I'm not kidding.

We'll just get out of our vehicles on the side of the road and just go at it.

Well, that's not gonna look very good with a preacher.

No, I got a redneck in my church.

I'm gonna get a raise.

Was that ever pastor on the side of the road?

Up there by cleaving, passing my boy down, just giving him the number, just giving him a knuckle.

Yeah, we're gonna take up a love offering and bail him out before some of these and come preach.

And we're gonna put him back in there.

Now, by the way, if you're visiting today, I'm not a violent man.

I'm not.

I'm not.

Here's the thing.

How in God's name do you borrow money from your mother and never pay her back?

And she's got the least amount of money of all of us.

And what happens is that for me to be the good son, to be the accountant, to play my role, I've got to give my mom.

So basically, I'm financing my brother's irresponsibility.

Love my mom.

I always give her.

And I'm just like, matter of fact, I'll just drive to your house.

You stay there, I'm on my way.

And my wife is like, hey, that's not who you are.

You're not that person anymore.

All of a sudden I remember how to be that way.

Yeah.

So I don't, I don't want, I say that, not not so, but it just, I'm not above that.

I live in this.

I live in this.

Oh, so you're not coming Thanksgiving this year.

Well, you know, so-and-so's come.

Oh, you mean the brother that never comes?

He's coming one year out of ten, and I'm I'm the bad son because I'm not coming.

No, you guilt doesn't work on a forgiven man.

Well, whatever.

Oh.

The noble martyr.

The noble martyr is the lady that does dishes every year while everyone's in that other room watching TV drinking beer, and you're praying for them because they're sinners and they're in there drinking beer and watching football.

And the reality is, is you'd rather be in there drinking beer and watching football.

But you never stand up for yourself and say, hey, I kind of resent you, you, and you.

I know you're my sisters and you're my sister-in-law, but y'all can watch dishes this year.

Because mama's gonna get her drink on.

Amen.

Amen.

Here's the noble martyrs down here.

Yeah.

Don't be mad at them.

Ask yourself, why do you keep doing that?

Uh, you got the fixer?

That's the you know you're the fixer because your mom or dad comes to you and says, Hey, can you talk to your brother?

You're like, hey, daddy's right there.

Yeah, but you know, they're kind of having problems, and you know, I don't want to get, well, so you want me to get into it.

Uh the sheriff, just what it means.

They're there to enforce the rules.

The enabler, the enabler is the person that says, Yeah, your dad does blank, but he has a really stressful job.

The enabler excuses behavior that's inexcusable.

The narcissist is the person that is going to get their way all the time.

They're just going to.

Because the world's not about me, right?

What?

Uh, the ghost.

This is typically the youngest child in a family system or in a large family.

This kid is the ghost because they see if the older siblings have caused mom and dad trouble, this kid just thinks, keep your head down and be invisible.

And some of you in this room are the ghost.

And you and you're not quiet, you're not shy, you have a lot of thoughts and opinions, but you have older siblings that put your mom and dad through hell, and you're like, I'm not doing that.

Uh, the little girl, little boy, that's the role that says, Hey, I'm gonna be who I'm gonna act at the same age I was when I was the least amount of problem to my parents.

I'm just gonna be super compliant and whatever.

The bully.

Uh the bully is the person that has to have their way, and they emotionally manipulate everybody.

They don't come out and say it.

It's very subversive, very under the table.

Uh, the comedian is the person that entertains on the surface.

Uh the comedian's like Rodney King.

Can't we all just get along?

That's their unconscious mode of going into every family gathering.

Let's just let's avoid these four topics, and and I'll I'll make sure all the plates are spinning, and then we'll get out of here and go home, and it'll be fine.

And then we'll talk about these people on the way home.

Uh the peacekeeper.

The peacekeeper is like, hey, hey, hey, let's just agree that this is what we're gonna do.

The peacekeeper gets everyone to play make-believe.

It's like getting out a big bin of dress-up clothes and saying, let's just all play dress up.

It's only for four hours.

Okay, whatever.

Uh the problem child, one of my favorite ones.

The problem child is the person that struggles with addiction, gets in trouble with the law, that has crazy issues.

And here's why it's one of my favorite ones.

Because if you've been the problem child, when you get healthy, nobody else knows how to relate to you.

Who does the enabler enable?

Who does the fixer fix?

Who does the accountant pay for?

It's very threatening to your family system.

And the problem child, the wiring in your brain says, just go back to being a problem.

You don't struggle with addiction as much as you love your family, and they're more comfortable if you're screwed up.

You get healthy and they're like, Don't you love us?

It's very disorienting because you're like, Don't you love me?

Aren't you proud of me?

They tell you they're proud of you when you were a mess.

You get healthy and they're like, Who are we now?

Uh, the scapegoat.

That's the person that just takes it, just gets blamed for everything and just takes it.

A lot of times it's an ex-wife or an ex-husband.

Here's what you haven't figured out.

They're not even there anymore.

You're still blaming them.

Hey, you seem really sad.

Yeah, my ex-husband, he's a piece of work.

How long have you been divorced?

17 years.

I've been with this guy 15, and you're still blaming your ex-husband.

Woo! Where's that wine that lady got made she be?

Oh.

The good boy, good girl.

That's just the golden child.

I'm not gonna rock the boat.

I'm gonna be great.

I'm gonna just do whatever I gotta do.

Uh, it's passive aggressive.

This is the most passive aggressive person in the family.

They just smile and inside, they're like, I wish I could kill you.

But they're good.

The last one's the helper.

The helper was parentified at a young age, uh, so they get in the habit of helping.

They reform and manage things as a way to manage their anxiety.

Let me say it again.

They get parentified.

What does that mean?

The helper is a little boy or girl gets asked by their parents to help them to fix the parents, and that little boy or girl gets in the habit of helping older people.

And so this is the way they protect themselves from the anxiety that they know my family's kind of messed up, but the way they protect themselves and manage their own anxiety is they just keep helping.

That's the helper.

So, why do I say all that?

Uh, here's why.

Well, this is what they expect of you.

Uh, here's where your depravity and my depravity comes in.

Look at me.

This is what your family they expect you to play your role?

Look at me.

This is also how you control them.

You say, What do you mean?

We control our family uh by acting in this role that we've always acted in.

But as we get older, we know the outcome of this expected behavior, and so we engage in it for our purposes as well as theirs.

This is how you can control them.

They they don't know who you are because in your mind you're like, hey, they they still think I'm this, but I know I'm this.

So I'm gonna be this, and I'm gonna manipulate this to get my way.

The last fruit of loving yourself means this.

It means you begin to regard yourself.

It means you begin to regard yourself.

Uh I ask people in counseling a lot, what does it look like for you to regard yourself?

And they all say the same thing.

I have no idea what that means.

What do you mean?

That sounds unbiblical.

I'm like, it's very biblical.

What does it look like for you to regard yourself?

To regard means to have or show respect or concern for.

To regard means to have or show respect or concern for.

The problem with a lot of people is they have more respect and concern for everybody else than they do themselves.

And this is Christian.

This is Christian.

Some of you right now are writing down, don't the Bible say that in the latter days, in the end days, men will be lovers of themselves?

It does.

2 Timothy chapter 3, about verse 2.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

Not at all what we're talking about here.

That's talking about narcissism and the egomania.

This is talking about the standard, the liberating reality that allows me to love God and love people in a relational way, not a transactional way.

It's that I love myself.

Because Jesus says, as yourself.

When I say uh it means you begin to regard yourself, let me give you the three R's and we'll be done.

You still with me?

Who's depressed?

Just kidding.

Y'all are like, can we go back to John, please?

Here's the three R's that comes to regarding yourself.

Look at me.

If you don't learn to regard yourself, what does that mean?

It means that I kind of have or show respect or concern for myself.

If you don't learn to regard yourself, then what happens is you will begin to absorb resentment.

You begin to feel resentment, you begin to feel it well up inside of you.

Your husband gets a little verbal when he's driving, ladies.

He has these disproportionate responses.

Somebody doesn't use a blinker, and your husband gives a paragraph commentary, uh, like for the next 20 minutes, and you're like, babe, it was just a blinker.

It's not the blinker.

It's his his resentment is up to here, and the human psyche can only take so much resentment.

And then the third R kicks in.

You engage in what I call reward-based behavior.

Well, because I had to do this or I didn't get this, I deserve this.

Now look at me.

I'm gonna connect the dots for you.

Some of you don't struggle with addiction, you don't drink too much, you don't eat too much, you're not addicted to pornography.

Look at me.

You don't know how to regard yourself.

And so, because of that, inevitably, reward-based behavior becomes necessary.

I have to reward myself.

No one else is doing this for me.

Your depravity is so noble to you, you have no idea what this feels like.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's really sad to be inundated with resentment and to be low-grade angry all the time.

Or is that great theologian Tim McGraw used to sing, I have a life that most would love to have, but some days I just wake up fighting mad.

It all goes back to how do you regard yourself?

How do you regard yourself?

Maybe let's just end on that question this morning.

And it's simply this What would it look like for you to begin to regard yourself?

What would it look like for you to just begin to regard yourself?

I said to a couple in marriage counseling not long ago, the lady's like, My husband's angry all the time, and I don't know what the deal is.

And I said, Can I make a suggestion?

And she said, Please.

She had an old notebook and she was writing stuff down.

It was going well for about the first 32 minutes.

And then Pastor Sunshine said, This, I think your husband resents you, and so he moves away from you, so he doesn't just kind of dump all his resentment for you on you.

And she said, Why would he resent me?

And I said, He's right there, tell him, ask him.

And she said, You don't resent me, do you?

You hear that?

And I said, Time out.

That's an invitation for him to agree with you.

That's just another reason for him to resent you.

And he said, That's one of the many reasons I resent her.

And I said, She's right there, tell her.

And this man who loves his wife looked at his wife and said, You have spoken to me our entire marriage in such a way that I can never be honest with you about what I feel or what this feels like.

I resent, he used inappropriate language, out of you.

And she threw her notebook down.

I said, No, write that down, pick that up, write that down.

This will change your life.

And I said, by the way, if your husband, if you don't learn to help him process that, he's gonna move away from you.

He's gonna reward himself with something.

Maybe not another woman.

Maybe another week at the deer lease.

And she went, he has started hunting a lot.

And the guy looked at me and went, hey dear hunter, I'm okay with deer hunt.

I'm telling you this, and we're done.

If you don't learn to regard yourself, the human psyche can only absorb that much resentment.

You don't have to be a noble martyr.

I'll just take it.

I'll just take it.

And if you fill up with resentment, it's just a matter of time before ding the elevator opens up and your mind says, You know what, be good right now?

You know what I deserve?

You know what I should do?

And you do it.

And you keep doing it, and you do it again, and you do it again, and then you go to council and you go, I'm addicted to blank.

And the counselor never says, Let's go back over here.

Tell me how you regard yourself.

Tell me what your theology of self is according to the Bible.

It's so much easier just to go, yeah, drinking's not good.

You shouldn't drink.

You know, Jesus drank grape juice.

It really wasn't wine.

That's not true, by the way.

This is the symptom.

This is the problem.

So it behooves us today to ask ourselves, hey, what would it look like for me to regard myself?

Let's pray together.

God, our uh realization today, whether we're willing to have it or not, is that some of us have loved God and loved people so intensely.

We loved the people that we loved as our husband, our wife, and they have disappointed us and failed us, and it makes us angry, and we don't know whether to take it out on you or them.

And the real issue is that we just never learn to love ourselves.

Because if we could love ourselves, our wives and kids would feel safer about being honest with us.

And our husband would be safer, feel safer about being honest with us, and we would have a maturing relationship, not a maintenance-based relationship.

We could spend our energy and our time on maturing this, finishing out the basement and adding a fifth floor on this beautifully expansive marriage.

Instead of trying to figure out how to avoid each other in this three-bedroom house.

And so, Holy Spirit, just brood over us for a moment and just kind of give us revelation about what we do with this.

Father, I pray for a weight that has come on some people in this room during this time this morning.

Pray that it wouldn't be overwhelming.

I pray that it'd be clarified.

I pray that people would step out of their role and step into their responsibility.

We don't just play a role, we have a responsibility.

And sometimes we have to say to moms and dads and brothers and sisters and even children that we love, you know what, I've played this role for so long, but you know what?

What I really need to be motivated by is my responsibility.

So I because of my responsibility as a husband and as a father, we can't do that.

I pray for some women who have to say to their mom, you know what, love your mom.

I've I my role is your daughter, I'm always going to be your daughter.

But my responsibility, my weighty responsibility as a wife and a mother, means I have to do this this year.

I just pray that you would teach us to love ourselves.

Like the Bible talks about is this this this this anchor, this standard by which we can love God and love people relationally instead of transactionally.

We pray for this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

Thanks for your presence today.

If you're a guest, hopefully you have an opportunity to fill out one of our guest cards on your way out here in just a minute.

If you just drop it in one of those wooden boxes by the doors, uh we would love to just have a record that you are here.

We're not going to show up uninvited uh to your house.

Uh there's a lot of different things going on at our church, opportunities to be involved.

Let me tell you about one of them.

Uh, and then I'll show you some other ones in our announcement video.

Uh, our new devotionals are in.

They kick off on December the 1st, but if you'd like to grab one of those, our ushers will have a handful of them on your way out.

Uh, it's a great tool to kind of get your day started.

It's a little few Bible verses, a little half-page reading.

Kind of lean your mind in the right direction, okay?

Here's some other things that are going on uh in the life of our church.

Let's give our attention to this.

Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

November 25th is a family worship Sunday.

We'll have child care for birth through kindergarten, and all Bible studies for first grade through adult are canceled.

Tomorrow is the deadline to register for the Family Christmas Experience on December 1st.

If your child is interested in singing in our children's choir this year on December 16th, please email Clyde at Grandparkway.org by this email, including the name and ages of your children.

Children must be at least five years old to participate.

If you are new to our church and would like more information, or if you are ready to make this your church home and become a member, starting point is for you.

Our next starting point is December 2nd at 11 30 a.m.

Registration is available at Grandparkway.org.

December 16th is Hilarious Sunday, where we will give prayerfully and intentionally in order to pay down our current debt.

Our request is suffering.

Pray, listen, obey.

If there's anything you've heard today and you have questions, or you would like for someone to pray with you, some of our pastors and elders will be in front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

Stand to your feet and let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out if you would, please.

Your God has first loved you.

And in loving you first, he was telling you it's okay for you to love you as well.

He knows more about you than you know about you, and he's not wrong.

Depart now and live as if you believe God's right when it comes to you.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.