Emotional Healing Week 6 (feat. Mike Plunket)

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Good morning.

We are in our six week of our emotional healing series and I'd like to start off today by having us read a scripture from Philippians.

I like it when the whole church reads God's Word Together, out loud so you will you read with me, rejoice in the Lord always I again, I say rejoice led your reasonableness, be known to everyone.

The Lord is at hand.

Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Now, one of the things that amaze me when I started seeing that God was targeting my heart for healing and when he was opening up my emotions is how I began to see that almost every scripture that has deep meaning to me speaks to the emotions.

This is one of the most important scriptures on prayer and one of the most important scriptures on, on how to go through trials.

Paul himself is in prison.

While he writes this and he speaks of emotionally speaks to the emotion of joy.

To rejoice is to make your joy known.

He speaks of the emotion of piece of being a person who has peace in their heart.

He speaks to the emotion negatively of anxiety had, or you could say that Thanksgiving itself is an emotion, and so the whole of scripture is filled with this desire to take you from surviving to thriving.

And for that thriving to be real, there has to be emotional health, which means there has to be healing.

So let's look together with the Bible says about joy.

Now it surprises me that when Paul says rejoice, it's in the imperative form.

In other words, it's a, it's a command.

It's not an option.

It's not a suggestion.

And yet, joy can't be forced.

Joy is not something you can fake.

It's not something you can go, I'm going to be joyful when you're not.

So he's saying that there's a joy to be appropriated that's not from this world a joy to be appropriated.

That's not based on circumstances or people.

It's a joy that only belongs to those who are in Christ because he says in the Lord, rejoice in the Lord.

So what he's telling you about here, as he's talking about that the believer has within them a spiritual buoyancy.

In other words, inside you is a beach ball of joy.

I love beach balls.

There's so much fun.

You push them down, you stand on them.

Eventually they pop right up because they have a buoyancy to them.

They cannot be sunk.

And what Paul is saying is that within side of you, granted to you, given to you, not produced by you, is a joy that makes you unsinkable a joy that gives you, uh, something that in the midst of being persecuted, you're not destroyed being crushed.

You're not destroyed being, you know him, Dan on every side.

But you're not defeated how you can be sad, but no, a buoyancy even in your sadness.

And so what does this mean to have rejoicing in the Lord?

Well, it means that the joy is coming from him.

It's not coming from you.

So it's really about a change of focus.

As long as you're focused on outcomes, as long as you're focused on people and their approval, as long as you're focused on circumstances, you will not have joy.

But when with the focus changed to your heritage in the Lord Jesus Christ, you began to realize that no matter how sad you are, you have an unconditional acceptance.

You have an unconditional love that has been put on you, not because you deserve it, but because Jesus fought for it for you.

Also no matter what happens to you, it is not a time where you have to prove yourself to have worth or to have value because Jesus has already settled for the believer that they are significant.

He's settled your worth by saying you are worth the life, the son of God.

And then what most of us really want when we're going through trouble is we want to feel free from fear.

We want to feel safe.

We want to know that we're secure.

Listen, Jesus.

Yeah, went into death, blue, adore outside the back of death and says, come follow me.

And if you don't have to be afraid of death, what do you have to be afraid of?

So in other words, you have an eternal security.

You don't just, you know, you don't just have son love.

You have unconditional love and acceptance.

The world didn't give it to you in the world.

Can't take it away.

It is settled.

You're not ever going to be able to say truthfully, I'm nobody.

Because if Jesus says you are worth his life now he has made you are nobody into somebody.

Somebody loved by God, somebody cherished by God, somebody protected by God, somebody valued by God.

He was willing to purchase your life with his own life.

In other words, he set the ransom figure for your life, his own life.

You can never again say, I'm nobody.

I'm nothing, and if you do, then you're believing a lie.

But also that means that whatever you go through, whether it's failure or a success, it doesn't change your significance.

Whether you win or whether you lose your significance is not settled by your performance.

This, your significance is settled on the cross of Jesus Christ, and until you get to that place, you will not have buoyancy.

You will be shaken by every wave of every circumstance.

You'll be double minded in all your ways.

You can expect nothing from God.

You're unstable, you're unable.

We're unable to depend on you until you settle your significance.

You're using us to prove that you're somebody.

Are you hearing me?

Yeah, so that's why he says have joy.

That's why he's saying you got to have joy in the Lord because it's not settled anywhere else.

What do you do today?

Will be asked for more tomorrow.

Whatever you prove today, you'll have to prove it again tomorrow unless you've settled your significance.

And then here's the thing.

Your heart can only have one or the other.

It can only be filled with fear or it can be filled with love.

It is totally up to you what you're going to live by.

If you have decided fear is the way you're going to live, then you're going to live without love, which means you're going to live without joy.

Fear will not allow you to have joy, even the things that you succeed and you'll not be able to enjoy because you're afraid to lose them.

So the only way that you had this buoyancy, the only way that you're unsinkable is if you are focusing on who you already are in Christ, right?

Not what you're trying to attain, but what he's already attained for you.

Yeah,

it is activated by faith.

It is not activated by works.

You see what this passage is talking about, rejoicing the Lord.

Is it saying this that for all eternity, the son of God has lived in the joy, the overwhelming joy of the father.

The father has continually being lavishing on the sun, all of his joy for all eternity.

The son has been lavishing all his joy on the father.

They live in eternal, intimate joy with one another.

The Holy Spirit is the expression proceeding from the joy of the father and the son proceeding forth with the joy of the Lord, which then becomes your strength and Jesus was so jealous that you would have that joy that he left his joy and he became a curse.

You see for a time so that you could have joy.

He became the curves.

He became your cancer, your diabetes, your arthritis, your high blood pressure.

They became your zits on your face.

He became, he be just seeing if you're listening, maybe you came, your sexual immorality became you're lying, your pride, your arrogance.

He became your betrayals.

He became every thing that causes the wrath of God.

And it was all exhausted in him so that now he could take your sorry self and bring you in the middle of the joy that the father has for the son, the son for the father.

And now the sun is bombarding you with his joy and the father is and bombarding you with his joy.

And all you have to do is believe.

Yeah,

I only three of you got that.

And I told that really well.

Come on.

See if you, if you're a religious person, okay, I gotta be joyful.

Please stop.

Who Cares?

You can't produce this joy.

It has to be a joy that you go, I don't deserve it.

I didn't work for it.

I can't produce it.

But by faith it is mine.

It is mine.

So here's what, here's what that joy means.

Hmm.

You've got nothing more to gain.

Wow.

In other words, if you're unconditionally loved and accepted, you've got nothing more to gain.

So every time you go out there trying to strive and get more and get more, this is mine.

This is mine.

You're forgetting your joy, you're saying, Lord, that doesn't matter to me what you did for me.

What matters to me is my job, my girlfriend, my boyfriend, my husband, my wife, my children.

This is what matters to me.

And guess what?

If that's what matters to you, that will not bring you joy.

Yeah.

You also have, you have nothing to fear.

Yeah.

You have nothing to prove.

You see, if you have a settled significance, whether you're a CEO or you're the janitor, you're just as loved by God either way and you're just as valuable.

Whether you're the janitor or whether you're the president, it doesn't matter.

You're just as valuable because the same Jesus died for you that died for anybody else.

So whether you have been called to dig ditches or whether you've been called to build cathedrals, your value and worth is set.

So you've got nothing to prove.

That's why joy comes is when I don't have to prove anymore that I'm worthy of this joy, but I realize he's made me worthy.

So then as I work, whether I'm a janitor, I'm or I'm a CEO, whatever, whatever I'm working at, I'm working at joy because the job is not my joy.

Come on now.

This can save you a lot of counseling right now and then you have nothing to lose.

You see, if your eternal security eternally secure in the world can't take away what really matters to you.

See, the joy that Paul is talking about is not a pleasure.

Joy, though pleasure is a part of it.

It is a joy that gives you a confident assurance within a confidence and an insurance that I have what matters.

These other things are in my life, but they're not ultimate to me.

These other things are expressions where I get to express my personality or I get to express my gifts are I get to express my talents, but they are not what proves me.

They are not what values me.

It settled for me.

I have nothing to gain.

I have nothing to prove, have nothing to lose.

Do you know how dangerous she would be if you could have all three of those?

That's what this joy is.

That's what the Boolean is.

Do you understand?

Paul understood that he said to live is Christ and to die is gain.

So he said, what I already have is what matters to me and if I lose my life, I will not have lost what matters to me.

Come on.

See, the problem with so many of us is we find our joy in the blessings and do not find our joy in the blesser.

You cannot have biblical joy.

You cannot have healthy joy unless the blessings always point you to the blesser that every blessing that comes, you look at it and you say, thank you.

This came from you.

You see, as soon as you stopped that the blessings become demands.

They become expectations.

They become things for which you're no longer grateful, but you think you deserve.

And once that happens and he takes the blessings away, then your joy is taken away.

But also your gratefulness is taken away and your love is taken away and your Thanksgiving is taken away.

Now, you see, what we find is that we're to enjoy the blessings, but we're to always know that any joy I have in a blessing points to the source, that the blessing itself is not the source.

Now I find myself very petty about this.

I find that God uses blessings to kind of show me where I still am trying to prove something or gained something or where I'm trying not to lose something.

So let me give you a very bad illustration from mileage.

I travel with this guy and I love, and we, we do prayer conferences all over the world.

Every time we go to the airport, he gets the upgrade.

I get the luggage compartment,

okay?

And so he's in first class eating steak.

I'm eating mystery meat in the back and he looks at me and goes, favor of[inaudible].

God

just chaps me a whole lot.

You know, it just, I'm sitting there going, God, he gets that blessing.

I'm back here with the screaming kids, you know, that the parents don't control and, and all of that kind of stuff.

And I just, Oh, why aren't I getting that blessing?

Why does he get that blessing?

And so part of me goes, well, he must be more important than me or he must be more loved than me and I, and when that comes out and it started to go, wait a minute, I got nothing to gain.

Right.

You've got nothing to prove.

I got nothing to lose.

God is using this to show me where I'm still petty.

Show me where I'm still selfish, where I'm still saying, God, if I serve you, surely I should get first class.

Cause he does.

You understand?

Or maybe I'm sitting there going, send him back here

with me.

Are you, are you hearing me?

See, when I, when I first married Lisa, I had this attitude and the attitude was basically I'm marrying you for you to be my joy.

Well, I'm married a great woman, but nothing that is my strength has ever worked on Lisa.

My persuasive abilities are completely lost on her.

My charm never works on her.

She is in, moved in, movable.

She is resistant to everything that I do.

And I just said, God, you must've made a mistake.

And the reason was, my thought was you're going to bring me joy in.

This doesn't bring me joy.

And so we had to go deeper with God together because we're so opposite and was so different.

And yet it's clear that God called us into marriage as a laboratory for a guy pay love.

And so here's what I found is Lisa points to the source, but she's not the source.

And so when I go to the source, I find my joy and I bring that to my marriage.

Then Lisa can be Lisa, not who Mike is trying to mold her into.

But I find that that applies to everything.

If my source of joy is the Lord, then I go to him and I take it to my work.

Even if I don't like my work or even if my work environment tough, my joy doesn't come from my work.

My joy comes from the Lord and I take it to my work.

My family sometimes may not be healthy.

They may be dysfunctional, but they're not the source of my joy.

And so I go to the source of my joy and I bring that to my family.

Some of you are hearing this, others of you is sitting there like stumps.

Come on, you got to hear this today.

Do you understand?

If this is that important in the Bible and you're not enjoying his joy, then Satan has defeated you.

And by taking your joy has disqualified you.

Because I cannot tell you how many preachers speak nothing about joy, but speak about duty and obligation and and obedience and all of these things, which if they're not done in joy, they're not really obedience.

All right, I understand what I'm saying.

I understand why those who went before me spoke so much about those things because if I can make you fear, I can manipulate you.

Yeah.

If I can make you afraid, I can make you give more tithes and offerings.

I can.

I can control your behavior.

But if I'm a, and in some ways therefore you could hide your heart, but you could change your behavior.

But in order to have the rejoicing in the Lord always, and notice it says it twice.

And again, I will say rejoice.

You know the Bible when it, when it repeats itself, it's saying you better listen.

So here's the will of God, not that you're fearful and trying to behave, not that you're afraid of punishment and trying to avoid, but that you are full on in the face of the father's joy in you and the face of the sons joy.

Because he puts you right in the middle of it and he's bombarding you with it right now.

And so that when you get that and you start feeling it, nothing can sink you.

Well, uh, let me, let me take it a step further.

So every Christian then should be the most familiar with joy of anybody in the world because this is the joy that overcomes the world.

But it also means that if you got it right, that you're my source, then he can bless you with all blessings.

Let me give you just one that I love.

He blesses us with food that is tasty, tasty.

I give him praise.

You know, I make, I make inappropriate noises to the Lord when it tastes good and Lisa, go stop it.

Well, see, here's what I know.

I know that that blessing is not coming from the kitchen.

It's coming from heaven, and he has made me to where when it's a blessing, it's a blessing and I get to enjoy it with joy.

But here's what I know.

Everything that I enjoy here on earth is just a faint hint.

It's just a faint hint because you see it came from the throne and throne is far from us, but if it tastes that good here, how good is it going to taste from the fountain itself?

And the other thing is this.

I know when I'm eating and I'm enjoying it, I'm saying this is just a foretaste of the wedding supper of the lamb to which I am invited.

I'm getting a dim hint now of what eternity is going to be, so I can enjoy what he is blessing me with now because it all is pointing to the fullness of his blessing to come.

Come on.

That's, that's awesome man.

So that when you're eating or when you're watching something on TV or a movie and yet or are you just running and doing sports or whatever you're doing and you feel his pleasure, don't think it's just chemical.

Recognize he sang.

That's a foretaste.

I'm giving you a hint to what's ahead and as much as you enjoy it now, just think of what it will be to enjoy the origin of this.

You're getting just the way out there, bits and pieces, but I'm going to give you the full meal one day.

Are you hearing me?

See Again, I say the sea.

You could be the worst person in this room.

I mean you could be the, sorry as person in this room, but if you get this, you will have joy unspeakable.

You won't be able to describe it and you'll know I don't deserve this.

I didn't work for this.

See, there are some people that are, they're like, okay, I'm going to try to be a better person.

You see, if you try to be a better person, you're further away from the joy than you were when you were downright bad person because at least the bad person goes, I'm a bad person.

The Gospel is not for good people.

It's for broken people.

It's for evil people.

It's only people who recognize I don't deserve this joy, but if I believe and if I receive it, it is mine.

The world didn't give it to me and the world can't take it away.

But here's the thing, Paul.

Paul makes clear that it can't just be joy, but it has to be joy and peace.

You have to understand if you have joy without peace, it's not from God.

It's from chemicals and pleasure and what Thomas Aquinas says, if you don't have true spiritual joy, you will turn to carnal pleasure which will addict you and become a slave to it because you are driven for joy.

You just have to decide what the source of that joy is going to be.

Now, how you know that it's real joy and not counterfeit joy is that the joy has peace with it.

And the piece has joy with it.

Listen, one Paul explains the way the spirit works in our life.

He doesn't call it the fruits of the spirit, as if you get to pick and choose which fruit you get to have in Galatians five 22 two he says, the fruit of the spirit is love, peace, joy and kindness, gentleness, patience, self control, all of these things, you know.

So when you look at this, what he's saying is they are all there together or they are counterfeit.

They are all manifesting in you or they're not of the spirit.

Those, there are people who have joy because they know how to have pleasure, but their pleasure is an addiction that will destroy them.

Even if it's a person, even if it's your family, any idol that you give yourself, two will ultimately destroy you.

But the joy that comes with peace and the peace that comes with joy can only come from God.

And so what may of us have sort of relegated piece too is that, um, I'm kind of, I'm sort of resistant to emotion.

I'm sort of able to have chaos around me.

But I have a cool head kind of thing.

And for those of us that are older piece is kind of exemplified by an old cigarette commercial called the Marlboro man.

You remember him, he had the perfect hat, he had the perfect cowboy clothes and everything's falling apart around him, but he's got his Marlboro and he's fine and he didn't feel anything until he had the cancer that killed him from the cigarette.

You understand that's a fake counterfeit piece.

You without joy is not peace.

You've got to have both the capacity to feel deeply and the capacity to navigate life well.

So piece according to Paul is where you've begun to turn that confidence and that assurance that you have into a trust that God's wise and good plan is worthy of you relinquishing control of your own life.

You see pieces.

The opposite of anxiety piece is when you began to realize, I don't need to control the outcomes that I have.

No right or ability to control it.

Saying I have one who knows me better than I know myself, who knows what I need and who knows where I need to go better than I do.

And peace is not that you cease to have chaos around you, but that in the midst of the chaos, you are trusting that your father is permitting and his wisdom, even things that he could prevent in his power and that you're realizing that the whole curriculum and the Holy Spirit is one which sometimes you may not understand unexpected things, hard things that come, but yet every single one of them has a purpose to conform you to the image of his son and you have peace because you have decided I will let go of control.

You see, you cannot have peace and be the one in control if you're in control than he's not in control.

Any one of you that give into fear instead of trust.

When you give into fear, you have given up your piece.

Fear says you have a right to control, so you step in and control.

Fear says you need to control.

It must be you.

Only you can control this only you are responsible only you can do this.

Only you can take care of this.

And all of those lies are basically vanquishing love from your heart.

Basically vanquishing trusts from your heart so that instead of love and trust, which lead to joy and peace, now you have fear, pride, and control.

Every controlling person as a fearful person, every controlling person as a prideful person, fear says, I've got to control process.

I have a right to control.

These are enemies of your piece.

What Paul is saying is so deep here, you see he's in prison.

He isn't in control of his life, but he is trusting the one who is.

So he has peace.

He has confidence in the wise and careful design of his father even in his prison.

All right, are you listening to this?

So all of you control freaks.

You're believing a lie, one that you, you have a right to control, but two, that you have the ability to control.

At some point in your adult life, you have to realize that all control is delusional.

So the only way that you can control is to become manipulative, intimidating, punishing, dominating to impose your will on others is not to love them.

Even if you've deceived yourself, that it's love to impose your will on others is basically to believe the lie of fear.

I have a need to do this and it's to believe the lie of Ego and pride.

I have the right to do this and if any of you in here go, but no one else is responsible but me, do you not hear the lie in that?

Anytime you hear that, no one, the never the always, you know at that moment you've lost it.

I mean at least and I, when we go into that argument, well, you always, always remember what you preached on last week and you never remember what you preached on the week before because as soon as you go there you, you are now in control mode.

You're now an intimidation mode.

You are in now in, I know what's right for you and you don't know what's right for you.

Mode pride goes before the fall.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

See that the thing that keeps coming out in us is not joy and it's not peace.

It's us wanting God to empower our control, which has word says he will not do.

Can you hear me in this?

See the the standard then and, and, and usually where it comes out the most is it with the people we love the closest because with them we take our mask off and they see how controlling we really are and they see how unpeaceful we are and they see how an joyful we are.

Even, even as we go through stress, as we go through trials, it becomes very easy for, for our own willpower to wear down.

And suddenly we're impatient or we're demanding or whatever.

And someone says, why are you like this?

And you're like, well I haven't slept or I have all of this on me.

And so what we're showing in that moment is we're not living by faith.

We're living by our own strength.

And if you're living by your own strength in this truth will not apply.

The joy of the Lord is my strength.

Now, here's what I have learned.

I'm not afraid of when that shows up because that tells me that's an area that still needs to be yielded.

So those of you that know are you with, I feel a little exposed right now.

So do you, are you hearing me?

All right.

All right.

So I'd feel, I, I've had trouble sleeping since we found out at least I had cancer and, and, and I've, you know, it's not because I'm worried.

It's not because I'm anxious.

It's because I love her so much and it just has changed our world.

And so I've really been applying this daily.

Lord, I don't have strength.

Your joy has to be my strength.

Your peace.

I trust in your council.

You have this, I can trust in this as your curriculum for us.

I don't understand it, but I trust it.

But at the same time I can see my cracks.

I can see the places where my heart is still not soft.

I can see the places where I still want control.

And yesterday, um, I took Lisa out for lunch and, and, uh, I don't know for something was wrong with their hearing or I was talking wrong, but she was miss hearing everything I said and, and, and I, so I just got louder and louder and more forceful and, and she, and I hurt her feelings.

I hurt her feelings pretty deeply.

It's like, why are you doing, you know, kind of a thing.

And at first I wanted to say, because you're not listening to me, you know, cause I want it to rise up against her and show her, you know, you need to listen to me and all this kind of stuff.

And then I go, Whoa, what happened to me?

And so as we're sitting down and I go, honey, I, I can tell I've lost my patience and it wasn't about you.

It was about me.

And it's about how right now I need to be refilled right now.

I need his joy right now I need his piece because I'm trying to keep it together.

And when I try to keep it together, I fall apart.

And so this word is not just a word that is kind of academic or intellectual.

It's a word that we need and that we need to be able to say, Lord, even in the midst of unexpected circumstances, I will live in the joy of the Lord and the peace will guard my heart.

Look, and this is, this is why I say to its joy in the Lord, but it's also the piece where Jesus says, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives.

So it has to be a heavenly thing.

So in order for this to really take hold in us, what I found is we have to unearth and bring out into light all of our expectations about life and relationships about our jobs and all of these things because our expectations are the roadblocks to our joy.

Now listen, this is the way I see us loose.

Explains it.

I love the way he says.

A group of people are invited to live in a building.

So they come up to the building and half of the people that are told this building is a luxury resort hotel.

And then the other half were told, same building.

It's a prison that you're going to have to live in.

So the people that go in to the building, we have the expectation that it's a luxury hotel.

Go in and start complaining because it doesn't meet their expectations and they're upset and they're anxious and they're trying to get control.

This is not what I expected.

This is not what you told me.

And so there's a lot of anger and there's a lot of that it stirred up because the expectation is not being met.

But the people who go in who were told it was a prison, they go, man, this is pretty nice.

I can live here.

You know, this isn't bad.

I think I can handle this.

But it's the expectation that makes life either bearable or miserable, either beautiful or are are a misery.

And so what's happened to many of us as we have believed lies about our Christian life.

We believed it's going to be a luxury hotel if we just pray enough.

If we believe enough, we read our bibles, enough would go to the right church.

We do this, we do that.

We believed it should be this.

If I'm good, then good things should happen to me.

But instead, even when you've read your Bible and you've done all these things, things can happen to you that are utterly unexpected.

But if your expectations are they're not supposed to happen to a Christian, then you're mad that it's not a luxury hotel, but it feels like a prison.

Are you hearing me?

And Jesus made it really clear what this life was going to be like.

I see no promises of The Bahamas.

I see him say things like this.

In this world, you will have trouble, but take care.

I've overcome the world.

And in order to overcome, in order to become an overcomer, you have to overcome something.

So I'm saying one of the things you need to overcome is your expectations.

Expectations are conclusions about outcomes, about the way things should be, how people should treat you, how things should go.

So I was struggling with this because I had lots of expectations that were misplaced in the misdirect and it was creating a lack of peace and a lack of joy.

So I did some study and I found that there are three levels of expectation that we all work with where you work with me on this, because you're going to have to think about this.

Okay?

So the first level is what's called an intrinsic level or are you could look at it this way.

Every one of us from the time we are born began to make assumptions about how people should act, how they should treat us, how they should say things, what they should do, and how things should turn out.

But these are things we don't tell people.

We assume they ought to know.

All right, are you hearing me on this?

Every one of you yet.

And one of the big issues about this is no one knows these expectations because you don't tell them, but you judge them on it.

So what happens in relationships is we hit each other's landmines.

I say something that hurts your feelings.

I have no idea why.

It could just be the tone or I do something in a way that makes you mad.

And I don't know why you're mad.

As a matter of fact, in marriage, I've been to marriage and one partner said to the other, I don't know why I'm so upset, but you ought to know, can I tell you, none of us has the gift of telepathy.

You are only responsible.

I am only responsible for what you make known to me.

Anything that you're assuming I should know you are presuming and you are not being loving.

You're walking in the dark.

And this is, this is easy to illustrate in as simple way.

So every now and then I just, I admit I want McDonald's fries.

I don't know what they put in it, but every now and then there must be an addictive substance there.

But, uh, I want their fries, but I, I wanted a certain way.

I want them really hot, golden brown and salted just right when they come out, must mushy.

I turn around, I go find the manager and say, give me the right ones because I you just as supposed to have those kinds of fries.

All right?

But if they do it exactly like I want, I just drive away with the fries and I never say anything.

You see, if all I'm ever doing are all you're ever doing is meeting your assumptions, I will get no affirmation in the relationship.

I will get no affection from you because I'm just doing what you think I ought to do.

But boy, if I cross you, if I don't do something you expect, you're going to let me know it.

Do you understand how marriages die because of this?

How friendships and how jobs stop because we're assuming you know exactly what I want from you.

We're assuming that you know exactly how to act and yet look around this room, all kind of cultures that have all kinds of expectations, genders, different economic backgrounds, different educational backgrounds.

Every one of these is a different set of assumptions.

If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of the Lord Jesus cleanses us of unrighteousness.

See, if you don't bring this stuff out into the light, it destroys your fellowship.

It destroys your friendships, your marriages, all of these things come on.

This is, this is important and until you're willing to get it up into the light, you're walking in the dark.

You understand?

If you're not in control of what your assumptions are, someone else is and it's not God.

Now the second one, stay with me.

Okay?

The second one is this.

We bring our son, we bring our expectations, our desires, our longings, our needs into the light, and we make agreements with each other this much healthier because I'm telling you what I want.

I'm telling you what I need, but here's the danger here.

It is always possible that I could tell you what I need or what I want and you could not do it or you could say you're going to do it and then you didn't do it.

Now what happens is some, many people look at themselves and say, but I'm a faithful person.

I'm a man of my word.

I'm a person of integrity.

Do you know when you get to that place where you have always fulfilled all of your obligations, you fulfilled all these things?

You know what happens?

You start to believe that you actually deserve and that those who failed do not deserve you.

Understand how easy it is to get prideful because you're right.

I mean I the wife who's nagging and saying, but you promised you promised never gets what she wants, but she gets a sense of pride to say, I have a sorry husband, but at least I'm a faithful wife.

Do you understand how that destroys joy?

How it destroys peace, how it destroys you, because every time you allow yourself to get into self righteousness or you allow yourself and to getting thinking, I'm better than somebody else.

How will you stand before God and say, Oh God, have grace on me but not on that person.

He will not give you grace if you cannot extend grace because you have an understood grace.

Are you tracking with me on this?

You understand how we get all caught up in these things.

Now, of course, if you're a person who never fulfills what you promise, you're afraid to have any relationships with anybody.

So you're ashamed, you're guilty and you don't know how to connect cause you've always let everybody down.

Well, the last, the last area was so interesting to me.

They, these companies did this study and they said, well, we could fulfill these intrinsic and extrinsic expectations, but even if we do, nobody's going to be really loyal to us.

No one's going to say this is the car we buy or this is the brand that we buy.

And so they looked at the expectations that said, if we know how to make people delight in us, we will get loyalty.

And here's what they meant by that.

You discover what somebody wants but doesn't know that they want it.

You fill that need and then they go the what I always wanted, even though I didn't know I wanted it.

And so this is a delight that comes because somebody figures out exactly what you need even before you know that you need it.

And the example that they gave as I was studying this was something that happened in the 80s I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember, but there was a day when there were no cup holders in cars and those of us who carried our coffee to work had these flimsy little holders that as soon as they hit a pothole, the coffee was all over you.

And so Chrysler Integrated Cup holders into the minivan and I think it was 1989 and suddenly everybody's like going cop owners.

We always wanted that.

And they literally say that Volvo almost lost their entire market share because they didn't have cup holders because like moms go to Carvalho cause Volvo was very safe.

And they would go to Volvo and say, do you have cup holders?

And they'd say no.

And they'd go to Chrysler and bio minivans because they were so delighted with Cup holders.

I don't know if you know it now, but every car I have had 6,000 cup holders and APP.

I mean they have, they have refrigerators, they Elyse boxes, they have all kinds of stuff now.

So what I'm saying to you is what delights you one day becomes a demand the next day so that you always have to be topping yourself.

You'll always have to be going more and more and more.

And what I realized, and I realized this the hard way, is that if I'm not dealing with these three levels of expectations, I have no capacity for joy.

If I'm not dealing with these levels of expectation within me, then I have no capacity for peace.

Let me, let me give you a a confession that's kind of embarrassing, but it, it's when I realized so clearly I had to deal with these things.

In 1994 I went to this promise keepers just for pastors, 42,000 pastors in the Georgia dome.

God met me so powerfully.

So in those days you didn't have cell phone sites, went to find a pay phone.

I called the police.

I said, Lisa, the Holy Spirit has just hit me with so much power.

He's filled me on.

I'm weeping with his love.

She goes, did you pay the water bill?

No, honey, you don't understand.

I feel like I've been baptized in the Holy Spirit's that they just turned the water off at our house.

And I have two kids who need a bath and we have no water.

And in that moment I realized I was living in the area of delight where I wanted everybody to approve every one.

I didn't just want you to say you're great.

I want you to say you're great for 30, 40, 50 hours.

Uh, you know, I wanted to hear a wonderful I was.

And what that moment told me is, how can, how can you be trusted as, as a pastor, if all you live is for the approval and delight of people when you're not paying the water bill for your own family.

And that moment convicted me so deeply, and I said, Lord, this is, I gotta get this right.

I've got to understand this.

I have to be a person who is the same in private as I am in public.

I have to the same with my family that I am with others.

And so I made a commitment that has changed my life and I said, Lord, I'm going to let this stuff come up into the light.

Now sometimes when it's come up, it's been ugly, but because I allow it to come up, it gets healed.

He doesn't bring it up to embarrass you.

He brings it up to here or here where you stand with me.

Are you quiet?

Cause you're listening.

All right, so the donut glaze isn't, this is where I'm saying all this to you because it is very tender stuff is if, if you'll hear me.

Now it is the stuff you have protected, but in protecting it, you have limited your joy in protecting it.

You limit your piece.

So here's what I'd like to ask you to do.

I like you to close your eyes and we're going to go through the three, the three levels.

You may have all three as an issue in your life.

You may have two or three, I tend to be two out of three.

I'm a moral perfectionist.

So I really get mad when people don't do what they say.

And I lived in that people pleasing delight.

So I, I always have to deal with those two the most.

But I, I was so proud of my wife because she lived kind of in that, that hidden assumptions, hidden dreams, hidden desires.

And I watched her with faith and with courage bring it all out into the light.

I, I've always been so amazed at her strength.

And so today I'm asking you to find that strength within you that longs for joy, that's driven for joy and peace and realize they have to go together.

If your piece can be unsettled, then your joy will go away.

So would you do with this with me if, if, if you're willing to open up all these areas, the Lord, let's take them one at a time.

So if, so, if you're one of those persons that you have these internal assumptions, this is the way people should act.

This is what they should do, how they should treat me, all of those would you?

And you're willing to open it up to the Lord.

Would you lift your hand to the Lord just like you're lifting these expectations to Lord, would you say this with me?

Lord, I confess that I have kept many things in the dark.

I have been in control not only of people, but also of circumstances trying to gain outcomes that I felt were favorable.

Today I relinquish that control.

I relinquished it to your control.

It's your wise, good, careful designed for my life.

I trust.

Now again, remember what the Lord says?

If you walk in the light, so where you're angry, you need to give it over to him where you're afraid you need to give it over to him.

Those are the things that tend to make you controlling.

Give it over to him and says, if you walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other and the blood of Jesus cleanses us of all unrighteousness.

All right, so if you're in the second group, all right, so people have betrayed you or are you've betrayed people, whatever it is, but there's a sense of there's this sense that I'm angry because I can't count on people.

I can't depend on people I've been lied to, I've been cheated, I've been stolen from, or are just that idea that everybody should just keep their word and you have this kind of rigidity that's killing you because you can't forgive.

What'd you just, would you raise your hand with me?

This is one of the areas I struggle with.

I get so angry when people don't follow the rules or when things don't go according to what I think they ought to go.

And when people disappoint me, and maybe you're in on this group too, would you say this with me?

Lord, I choose to forgive those who have let me down.

I give them over to your justice, but I take them off of my hook.

I renounced my pride that says the world should be as I expect it to be.

I lay down these expectations.

Me.

See what I'm asking?

I'm asking you, forgive those who have hurt you so that you're not carrying that into all your relationships so that you're not having walls of expectations that keep you from joy.

Again, you're bringing into the light.

See, if a child says, I can, I can trust you all the way or no way.

An adult says, I can trust you some as far as you are able to be trusted, but an adult doesn't throw themselves into relationships with people that are not trustworthy.

Let your wisdom be known instead of your fear.

All right, so bring down for that one, and this is the one I raised my hand up, the highest.

This people pleasing, delight, that wanting not just to be approved of, but people will think you're wonderful.

You're special, you're extraordinary, and that that we're going to renounce according to Galatians chapter one.

Okay?

It says, if we are slaves to people, we're not servants of God.

So would you say this with me?

I renounce the spirit of people pleasing, that I've tried to gain my joy from the approval and delight of others.

I agree with the scripture that if I'm a slave to people's opinion, that I'm not a servant of God.

And being a servant of God is what really matters to me.

I have nothing to gain.

I have nothing to fear.

I have nothing to lose because these issues are settled for me.

I'm not saying this will be easy, I'm just trying to give you a start.

There are layers of this stuff.

We're really talking about the deeper stuff at the heart, but see what's going to happen.

Would you look at me for a minute?

It's going to get worse, okay?

Because you're going to see it this week.

Cause this isn't stuff that you know beforehand.

It stuff that you know after it comes up.

So as it comes up, do not be afraid.

Even when that comes up, you're just as loved as ever.

Even when that comes up, you're just as worthy and worthwhile as ever.

Even if it's ugly stuff, it'll only come up so it can be healed because it's limiting your capacity for joy and for peace.

You and I, we should be the most familiar with joy and peace.

Come on.

This is good.

It might be hard, but it's good.

Well, even in spite of all that, God bless you.