Relationships Series 2024 - Part 2: Single Adults Session | Rev. Keith & Juli Tay

Hey there, you're listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We pray that the

word of God today will challenge change and channel you into your guard given destiny.

Now let's get started. Let's let let's start with a simple activity.

Okay, let's open our hands like that, put it in front of you.

Is that okay? When I say three, you clap spit together?

One, two, three, Let's do it. Okay, So let's let's

see how many of you you notice that your right tom is on top of

your left thumb, your right tom. How many of you left tom on

top? You see? This is this is the simplest, simplest personality test

that they say, if your right Tom is on top, actually a more

logical person very rational. Uh So somebody's like, huh yeah, you're better

with numbers, signs, signals. So this is this is a list of

it. If you are left Tom on top, usually you are a little

bit more emotional, creative, and uh you are better with relationship. That's

that's how it is supposed to be. But the thing is is that don't

don't don't store me for being not accurate. This is just a very very

simple exercise to know yourself. But The magic is this. Now you switch

just now, if it was right, right, turn to left, left,

you turn to right. Just just switch the position of your fingers and

tell me, how do you feel? Weird? Weird? Weird? What

else? Uncomfortable? Tell me? Is it? Is it like after a

while, even though this is your pair of hands, you only realize that

you can get uncomfortable just switching a direction. I think a lot of times

this is This is how it is when we come into a place where we

don't realize. This is how we make other people feel. You know,

when you switch. That discomfort that you feel is sometimes when you don't have

self awareness. That's how you make another person feel they feel a little bit

not too shure how to react, not to sure, how to respond to

you, not to shure, how to get along with you? Later with

my wife, we've been married seventeen years, with tree kids. My daughter

is sixteen, twelve and then nine years old. So let me ask you,

how many of you prefer rom com? How many of you prefer horror

rom com or horror movie? Okay rom com? How many of you prefer

Hollywood or k pop? Next Mountain or Beach Home? Kot are dining out.

So these are questions that sometimes we find it very casual and we just

just answer like that. But there are a lot of things about ourselves that

we don't know until someone asks. And this often happened when we got into

relationship, like your girlfriend or in a relationship, we'll always ask like,

what do you like me? What was so good about me? Why do

you love me? Why why do you choose me? There's a lot of

such questions that unless one has a right relationship with themselves, they will always

be seeking for validation. So you know, we are assummation of what we've

been true generally in life, it can be our upbringing, our family environment,

our childhood experience. And lately I've been telling a lot of my clients

that all of us are still reacting to certain childhood trauma. There are certain

traumas in our lives that we are still reacting to. It just that we

don't admit because now that we are adults, we don't really say it out,

but a lot of our decisions that we are still reacting. For example,

after being married for seventeen years, there's something I grew up from a

broken family, So my mom is a compulsive, addictive wards and a compulsive,

addictive gambler. My dad was hardly home, so the last place that

I want to be is home. So after getting married, I realized that

a lot of the planning or activities that I have always revolved through outside of

home. And then my wife would always ask me, what's wrong with being

home? What's wrong with just being at home? I find myself very grumpy.

I find myself very actually a very horrible person at home. I find

myself very impatient. I pays around, I need things to do, And

whenever we have a suggestion of let's work out on our relationship, let's work

out on this a family thing, I will always suggest somewhere outside because I

am still I was still reacting to my childhood trauma. That home was never

a place that was suggesting to build something meaningful. It has always been.

My mom used to rarely just say, you know, you know what,

I regret giving birth to you. You know what, the earlier die,

the better my life would be. That that was the common line that my

mom would always say. And whenever she lost in her gambling activities, she

will find any reason to whag me, any reason to just really it's not

even ken. Whatever that comes across her side, she will just take it

and then she would hit me. So whenever I'm home, it's associated with

a lot of pain. That's why when I got into a marriage only,

I realized that I'm actually not comfortable being at home, especially when I want

to build so called love relationship. I would always be a better version of

myself when I'm traveling. I would better be a always be a better version

of myself when I'm in church, whenever I'm outside, when you're working with

me, when we go to a mall, even the version of Keith in

the mall is way better than the version of me at home. So I

have to come to realization that if I'm still reacting to settle on my childhood

trauma, I have to come to an awareness why. Because a problem that

you don't know is a problem that you cannot solve. Am I right now?

So the problem that you don't know is called blind spots, And all

of us here in this room we have our blind spots. And I realized

that the more I grow up, the more I need to understand my blind

spots. It could be culturally, it could be family upbringing, It could

be how you're raised in certain a way of leadershi, it could be your

education background. But I realize that the best gift that we can give to

someone we love, whether it is our family, our relationship, or our

organization, our company, or our friendship, it has to be a healthy

you. This evening, you need to learn the best gift that you can

give to someone that matters to you is your health. Why because whenever you

are sick, it is very hard to be with you. There's a lot

of things that you cannot eat. You will lose your appetite, you will

lose your curiosity. You will see every problem as detrimental. You will see

every problem. As I remember once, I had a leader that she went

through a lot, and when I ask her why, she said, it

seems that everyone wants me to die. It seems that everyone is against me.

It seems that everything is going against me. But it's her world view.

Because you are sick on the inside, everything that you see, the

mountain seems to overwhelming, the ocean seems to be drowning, the challenges seems

to be very threatening. It is all the condition inside of you that caused

your perspective outside to see things like that until you come into realization, Oh,

Keith, you are actually not good at home. You need to learn

to be home more. You need to learn to rewire certain synapsis, you

need to learn to reframe some of your values and your thoughts. That slowly,

especially when I become a father, slowly I learn to reprogram myself and

learn to be home more and more, you understand. So, so we

just came out from COVID right that you can imagine after all that I said,

then two years you are homebound, or I tell you, I slip

into a lot of anxieties. I was so anxious or pacing around. I

couldn't take it anymore. I will walk out of my house and just walk

for five ten kilometers until I can come home. It was magnified. This

problem that I know that I'm working on was magnified to a greater degree.

And lo and behold, that was when I become impatient and I realized this.

Guys, don't don't miss it. Hurry kills relationship. Whenever you are

in a hurry, you always kills relationships. So when I am in the

anxiety mode, in that hurried mode, I always feel that I have no

capacity, no space to love somebody or even hear somebody properly. So I

want to challenge all of you today is that you must come into a place

where you want to invest in yourself and know yourself. My point here is

this A lot of times when I talk about when you consider dating, or

you're already dating, do you know what do you bring to this relationship?

Or even if you are in a friendship, or even if you're in your

family, you're still young and you are a son or a daughter, do

you know what you bring into that relationship? Not because a lot lot of

us we there not really look into the mirror, understand the person that is

inside the mirror, and work on ourselves. A lot of people resort to

blaming. A lot of people tell me that it's not fair. A lot

of people have a lot of issues that they don't want to face. And

as a result of that, my point is this, if you anchor your

identity on just your performance, on just your possessions, on just your popularity

or pleasure, just case in point, right, how many of you right

you have seen someone Instagram? I hope I'm not talking about anybody that they

have the same selfie of themselves with different clothes, and when you just open

up that patereot, it is just maybe fifty pictures of them, just same

smile, same angle, just different clothes. Sometimes it can be a joke,

but sometimes when you think about it, this person is actually looking for

someone to see them. Do you see me? A lot of people are

constantly checking if somebody is following them and following them because they want to be

sin And one of Jesus' ministry when he saw the prostitute, when he saw

the leopard, when he saw the widow, when he saw those that are

lame and blind, is that he had a ministry of noticing people. As

Christians, unless you are healthy, you won't notice people that are in pain.

You won't notice that people are in need. You won't notice even your

partner, your spouse, the people that are beside you because you are not

healthy. A person that is unhealthy has no ability to care for the other

person. So as a result of that, if you are unhealthy and you

get into a relationship, you will have this issue of you must complete me,

you must meet my needs. You must be the profile that fit me.

But the Bible teaches us when we get into a relationship, we are

ready to love, we are ready to be giving. You understand what I'm

trying to say. So sometimes we anchor so much of our identity into because

I'm a doctor, accountant, engineer, lawyer, therefore I am worthy.

It is a flawed framework for our lives. So how many of you you

would admit that sometimes you are quite an insecure person? Me too? What

cousts you your insecurity? Have you ever asked this question? Or in what

kind of environment you are most insecure in? What kind of environment you are

most easily triggered? In? What kind of environment you are most easily emotional?

Or you wall up? You straight away cannot feel, you cannot cannot

judge, you cannot cannot assess you at all. Do you know your trigger?

Do you know your trigger? Or not? If you for for me

a lot of times because of my family background, Like I said, I'm

still reacting to my certain childhood trauma. Whenever I realized that there is a

sense of lack, you know, because when I was growing up, my

favorite activity was stealing. I stole so many things in my life before I

was a Christian. I can tell you that all the toys that I want.

I would steal from Parkson, I would steal from Iron, I would

steal from the store and Ocean because my family had no money to buy the

Tamia cars that I want. I don't have the control card that people has.

I don't have all the game station that people had, so I resolved

to stealing. And a lot of times when I steal it is because when

my friends had it as a boy, I don't have it, so I

wanted. My insecurity caused me to the sense of lack, caused me to

do something to push beyond the boundary that I do a lot of unnecessary things.

So what caused you to behave at your worst behavior? Do you know

or not? What caused you to be absolutely insecure? Because in a relationship,

the insecure version of you will cause a lot of emotional turmoil, like

why are you like that again? Why are we quarreling over this thing again?

Why am I hating myself again? You know, when I was fourteen

to sixteen, for two years, I would wear a cat because I hate

to look into mirrors, so I would not do anything to my hair,

and I hated every mirror that I've seen because I just don't like who I

am. So a lot of people when they say, okay, let me

just give you an example. If you don't have self awareness, you don't

even know you are sick. Have you seen someone that coughing away and they

just live a normal life and you people will go to them and say,

hey, do you want to get check or out? Have you seen someone

that is totally overweight and live a normal life, and then like, do

you want to get checked? Like? They don't even care, they're used

to it already. But until you come to recognize that, okay, this

is the standard for my high, for my age, for my body type

should look like that. So a lot of people are sick and they don't

know. But if you are sick and you know, then you can move

from sickness to wellness. You understand if you don't know even that you are

sick. In certain areas like finances, if you keep using money and you're

always in depths, you're always having to pay the minimum amount of your credit

card, you don't even know that in depth you are sick. And if

social setting, you don't have friends, when you are lonely, you don't

know who to call, You have no prayer partners. You have nowhere to

turn to. Everyone is just casual friends. You are sick in your social

life. You're sick in your finances, you are sick in your fitness,

You're sick in your spirituality, you are sick in your ministry. You are

sick in your whole life. You don't know, then you cannot move to

wellness. But unless you are you realize that, Hey, Keith, I

think I'm sick. Then from sickness you can move to wellness, and from

wellness you can move to fitness, and from fitness you can move to impact.

But a lot of people say, I just grow. I want to

have an impact, but you are not. Why are we talking about impact?

So a lot of times entering into a relationship when two persons are equally

sick, they feel each other, they understand each other, but they have

no way to fix each other or help each other, and it becomes a

very, very very toxic relationship. And that kind of relationship that I have

counseled where a girl was being abused and she keeps going back to this guy

or a guy that is being controled and manipulated to craziness, and she keeps

going, he keeps going back to this girl. I've seen it again and

again and again. I wonder why it is because this person is sick and

they don't admit it until you say, hey, I think I have a

problem at home. There, I think I have a problem with the version

of the husband that you have at home. Then I can work on it.

You understand. Then I learned to design myself to be slightly not immediate

transformation. Go to the front, pray, then you'll slain, and then

you turn to another person not like that. Daily you learn to be a

better version of yourself at home. So that that's very important for us to

understand. We cannot give what we do not possess. We cannot give what

we do not possess. Whatever future that you imagine, guys in this room,

whatever future that you imagine the next five years, ten years, it

has to involve a healthier version of you. If you want, if you

want travel the world, it involves a healthier you to walk around. You

understand. If if you want to take nice photography, it involves a healthier

you to enjoy the scenery and to appreciate nature. It involves a healthier you.

Whatever future that you imagine, let's say we imagine a better church for

generations. It involves a healthier you to love people, to lead people,

to impact people. So I just want to say this, unless you are

willing to invest in your own health, there is no way you enter into

a healthy relation ship. A healthy relationship is consist of two healthy persons,

a healthy church, it consists of a healthy community. But if we don't

have that, what do we do? We will always want more pleasure,

we will always want more popularity, we will always want more possessions. And

today I want to challenge all of you that as much as we are a

meaning machine, I want you to know this that you are not a mistake

and you're not an accident. So when I when I travel, I travel,

I just I just came back from Moscow, actually not long ago.

And Moscow is a metropolitan with twenty million people. You know, just a

city is about the size of Malaysia, so there's a lot of people.

So I remember when I was in Tokyo and I was I was in Shanghai,

Wan time, I was overwhelmed with a panic. I suddenly down in

the train station, I sense my heart pulpit sating very fast, and I

suddenly felt like I am losing myself. Then I began to ask questions,

like with this kind of crowd when it is a peak hour, if I

have anything happen, and if there's a stamped. I don't know why these

thoughts just came to me. There's nobody, literally, nobody that knows who

I am, and I will just die like that. Suddenly a very scary

thought came upon me with that kind of if you have been to maybe a

Coplay concert, you've been to a Black Pin concert, you know that kind

of amount of people, and then suddenly like everywhere it's just people. And

I was overwhelmed, and I said, hey, if something happened to me

and I collapse, people might just walk over me. Nobody will stop suddenly

in my life, in my world, I thought, I don't know whether

you have this stop before that. Nobody will stop for you. Life goes

on, if you are hospitalized, if you check your Instagram, life goes

on. If you die, to tomorrow, people still go on. They

still go cycling, they still go running, they still go for marathon.

Tomorrow got a snoopy marathon. They still like, hey, will the church

even stop a service for me if I'm in the hospital. No. So

suddenly I was overwhere I said, God, man, I'm suffocating. And

then God said to me, it is because I'm not enough. It is

because I am not enough. God is saying that, because he is not

enough, That's why I'm seeking for all these things that will never satisfy me.

And then there I had a peace and I said, God, actually

you are enough. You know me. If I fall, I can trust

you. If I fall at that moment, I know you're faithful, someone

will be sent to help me. So you must know that when God created

us, we are not an afterthought. We are a forethought. Okay,

So Romans of the Aid res twenty nine Romans the eight Rest Night. He

says, God for new us and destinies to be conformed to the image of

Christ. That means you are not an afterthought. You know. Jeremiah one

five says that before I form you in your mother's room, I already know

you. So though it is very cliche, as you listen, if you

don't register that you are not an afterthought, you are a forethought. That

means you are by design, someone thought about you first. You will always

struggle with a lot of insecurity. How many of you you actually doubt that

you are actually adopted. I always thought that I'm adopted because I don't look

anything like my siblings. And my mom said, the earlier you die,

the better you are. Maybe you don't understand in your kind of upbringing.

How would the parents say that that's my upbringing? I would always question,

like a am I adopted? Why am I such a curse to the family.

But it is until you realize that no matter how your childhood is,

God already know you and you are not an afterthought, there comes your security.

Your relationship with God is your great security. So I just want to

say this, there's no one solution fixed. All you have to get embark

into this journey today by being curious about yourself. If I ask you this

question, just try to answer this question in your heart. How much do

you like yourself? One to ten? How much do you like yourself is

how much you value yourself. If you don't know how to appreciate yourself from

where God has created you and know that you are not a mistake, it

is always very difficult to be in a relationship with a person like you.

So Psalm one hundred and thirty nine, verse fourteen, I praise you because

I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. And then the Summi

said, I know that full well. My question to you is this,

do you know it full well or not? I guess a lot of us

we don't know. Do you know it full well? If you don't know

that, you need to fall in love with God in a deeper relationship.

I just want to say, it is the posture of your spirituality, your

understanding of God that will shape your identity. So today I want to share

something very very interesting. Do you know when someone said about your identity?

A lot of times we related to where we come from, how we are

raised, what kind of background we had, what we have gone through.

But identity today is not just the past and now, what you are doing,

How old are you, which school do you go to, who do

you associate with, what do you like? It's not just the past and

the now. A concept that I want to send to you, to present

to you today is that your identity is also your imagination of your future.

That means, right, if I am in a relationship with you, my

imagination of my future, my identity is not just my past and my present.

My identity is also my future, which the Bible language language calls it

your calling. If you don't know your calling, you will never be an

attractive person. Trust me, you know, everybody has a job, some

people has a career, but the most attractive person is always the person that

has a calling. When I say a calling is not full time ministry,

you understand, a calling means you finally know why you're created, why you're

put on this earth, what you're supposed to fulfill. So a lot of

people has a job and they suck up with the job. They just got

to tolerate with the job. Some people has a career that means it fits

them well, they are able to survive. But those most attractive people are

those that has a calling. They know why they wake up, they know

what keeps them awake at night. They just can't wait to live out their

And these people are very attractive to be with because they have a good sense

of clarity and direction. But when I'm with you, do you have a

calling? Not in your life? Or you're just bumping around and just going

through one day after one day after one day, you say, oh,

I'm just a happy, go lucky guy, or I'm just a simple guy.

I'm just an ordinary guy. Even an ordinary person must have a calling

in life. If you don't know what you're created for, the most frustrating

thing is to be in a relationship with you because you're not going anywhere.

That means right, the fulfillment of that relationship is just companionship. How pathetic

is that a relationship cannot just be companionship. It has to You have to

make each other better. Like the Bible says, irons sharpened irons. It

has to bring out the best of each other. So, if you are

in a relationship, I want to encourage you make this commitment and say,

my role is to bring out the best inside of you. My role is

to bring out the best on the both of us, on each other.

That this relationship is man to bring out the best of what God has called

us to do. So, if you are still and you are young,

which some of you are, that you're not even thinking about dating, I

want to say this, develop a good relationship with yourself. You got to

enjoy being who you are. If you don't enjoy yourself, nobody will enjoy

you. You understand what I'm trying to say. If you don't even like

yourself, it's every way of liking you is wrong. If you don't even

know how to like yourself. I'm not talking about love yet. I'm saying,

if you don't even like yourself, every way of liking you is wrong.

Every way of liking you is inappropriate, every way of liking you is

abnormal abuse because you don't even like yourself. But if you know that you

like yourself being like that, that means you are able to tell that person

maybe what's your love language, What would make you feel appreciated, what would

affirm you? What you will give you assurance. So, developing a strong

relationship with yourself starts from developing a strong relationship with your creator, that is

God. Pursuing personal growth. You know, you got to like growth in

life. You need to like progress in life. And then if you are

still single, remember be happy when others are attached. Don't be envious or

jealous. It is very important your time will come. I always tell people,

before God gives you something, you steal it. Other people sing well.

So I have a sermon that I used to preach is about the title

is it's not your party. It's not your party. Why is that sermon

important to me? It's because right when the prodigal son came home, the

brother could not celebrate. You know, the brother has no capacity to celebrate.

That means right. If you're a person that cannot celebrate others, right,

you aren't still not there yet. You must be able to celebrate other

people's successes. You need to be able to celebrate other people's a moulestone,

then you are a right person to date, to be datable. You know,

it is not about finding the right partner. It is always about being

the right partner. It's always about being so attractive irresistible that people will rarely

find it fulfilling to be part of your life. Is that okay? So

for me, I just want to encourage all of you. Remember, a

problem that you don't know is a problem that you cannot solve. You cannot

give what you do not possessed. So unless you are willing to invest in

yourself, it is always going to be very difficult. I give an example

of my upbringing. I'm sure you have ideas of how you are raised,

what kind of culture you are raised, and what kind of background you were

shaped. Understanding that and telling it out it helps you to know yourself.

So to me, I'll give you a tip. There is a magic in

writing out. When you write out your own thoughts and you read it back

to yourself, right, it is always so clear. But when you are

always just thinking in your mind without committing it outside of your body, you

will always have a way to manipulate that. But if you're willing to journal

down or you have a friend that you can share out this is what I

think about myself, you will have a lot more clarity in your life.

Thank you for listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We hope you have been

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