Emotional Healing Week 2 (feat. Mike Plunket)

Hey there.

Thanks for joining us at risen King Church for our weekly podcast.

We hope you experienced God's today.

Make sure you visit [email protected] to take all your next steps and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and youtube.

Enjoy the message.

Good morning everyone, and a little while on the sermon you'll see how meaningful that applause is.

We are in our second week of a emotional healing teaching and I want to remind you of some things that we went over last week and then add to it a little bit.

I am absolutely convinced the longer I study theology, the longer I've studied the Bible, that the default setting of God is for you to flourish.

Then his, his entire activity has been to make you great, to have you overcome whatever you need to overcome to be more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus, to actually not only say it as a Bible verse, but experience, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Even more than that, as Jesus said, the things I do you will do and greater things because I go to the father.

So in order for that to be true, you have to begin to believe.

You have to begin to settle the issue and say, I have the capability to achieve all that the spirit of God has planned for me.

I have that capability to achieve this.

But last week we talked about how our capacity has been damaged to receive it.

Whenever their emotional wounds in your life, any place that you're experienced, uh, lies and, and people disappointing you are life itself not going the way you want it to go.

There's woundings that take place that inhibit or limit your capacity to receive because it damages your trust mechanism.

So way of looking at what this series about or what God wants to do in your life over this these weeks together is that he has given you every capability to achieve the destiny has for you, but he wants to restore the capacity that you have to receive all the resources that are only appropriate it by faith and trust.

So he's given you and you have capability you're capable to achieve, but only in proportion that you're have a capacity to receive.

And that all comes down to the, to a third element and the one we want to focus on today is that you have to have healthy connections that actually allow you to experience the fulfillment of your deepest emotional needs.

Connections are the essential point at which his resources become reality.

Now, let me illustrate it with something that's kind of visual.

Whenever you starting to run out of gas in your car, you see on the gauge, it registers an empty tank.

You will look for a place to fill to refill the tank.

Now you go to that place believing that they have the resources, they have the fuel that you need, but it would not matter if they had the fuel and if you have an empty tank that can contain it, if there wasn't a connection point without the pump, who cares if a gas station has gas?

It's only when you can connect to the resource and it begins to be poured into you that it becomes filling for you.

And so what many of us have is we have very vulnerable places of connection.

The connections of the place where we've been most damaged.

If there's abuse in your family, it's a damage connection.

If there's been rape or if there's been sexual abuse or any con there's a damage connection.

It's not just a damage to your capacity, it's a damage to the way you connect in order to get refilled or to fill it be filled for the first time.

And the Bible is really, really clear about the importance of connection.

As a matter of fact, that actually lists connection as a place of love.

And in the New Testament, in Greek, there were four different types of love.

There were four different types of connections.

The ultimate connection is God himself who gives unconditional love.

In Greek, it's called a golf day.

Now you have to receive that.

You can't produce it, but the other three are the three loves of connection that God has designed us for the things that make life sweet the first of these designs and connection is family love, but God kind of puts family love in the place of an obligatory type love.

In other words, family love is you didn't choose them, they didn't choose you, but you're stuck.

Now the second connection is the Bible says there's arrows, there's, there's a romantic connection.

There is a sexual connection and as a matter of fact, the Bible says that connection is so potentially destructive and so, uh, explosive in it's in it's distraction and it's power that we can't even handle it.

And so the Bible says that it should be contained in covenantal commitment called marriage, but it is a, it is a design of God that you connect both romantically and sexually.

This is how he made you.

This is not something dirty.

It's not something to not be thought about, but rather it is his connection and it's part of being human.

But the, the third one and the third one's the one I want to focus on the most today is the Bible says that you were made for friendship.

That friendship is a connection like no other.

Now two things as we think about these three connectors.

The first is this.

God has pursued you in all three of these.

From the very history of the fall of man, God has pursued these fallen creatures, these sinful individuals.

He's pursued us and he calls us family.

He comes after us like a father.

It's a matter of fact when he speaks to the children, Israel, when he speaks to his beloved people, his chosen people.

He says to you, when you were young, I went and sought you in Egypt and I called you from Egypt to be my son.

Even when you could not walk.

I called your name and I taught you how to walk and I lifted you up in my arms and one of the Gri grievous things for God is how his children have rebelled against him as father and the heart of God is is to be a father in the new testament.

The way that we actually get in right standing with God is not because we're all brothers and sisters are and he's by nature.

Our father know by nature, he's our creator and we're his creation.

But to those who receive Jesus, he gives the right to be called children of God.

We don't have that right apart from Jesus.

And it's only as adopted sons and daughters that we come into the status of being equally loved and valued as Jesus, the firstborn son of God.

And so he is always pursued us in this relationship as father, but also the scriptures are very clear.

They pursues us as a lover.

As a matter of fact, one of the most dramatic books in all the Bible is that the Prophet Hosea where God says, go and marry a prostitute and show the people that I am like you, a man, you a man of God marrying a fallen woman for he said, for my people who I've pursued as a bride have chosen committed spiritual adultery with other gods.

And so we, he sees us not merely as these creations, but he sees us as ones upon whom he has said his romantic passion, that he loves us and pursues us and wants to be loved us as he loves us.

But also Jesus brings this whole new paradigm into the picture of friendship.

You see, Jesus said, greater love has no one than this.

This is greater love than family.

Love, greater love than romantic love.

Greater love has no one than this than a man lay down his life for his friends.

And Jesus looked at his disciples and he says, I'm not calling you my servants.

I call you my friends.

So God is the only place where all three of these connect.

But let me tell you just a little insight here.

If you're a family and you know how to be friends, your life will be sweet.

If you are lovers, if your spouses and you know how to be friends, your life will be sweet.

But if you don't know how your family will be an obligation and your romance will die because friendship, the Bible says is the key.

Now look, are you tracking with me so far?

So all right.

Only only so far.

But uh, look, I go with proverbs has to say about friendship.

Let's unpack this a little bit.

Why this is so important to God that you understand friendship and why it's so important to you.

In proverbs 17 seven it's the wisdom of God says a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.

In some ways.

What this is saying is that your friend chooses to be with you no matter what, but your family stuck with you.

You get in trouble.

Your family says, well they're family and so they kind of have to bail you out, but your friend does it because of love.

Unconditional.

Then the second one, the Bible says in proverbs 1824 a man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

That's a powerful statement and it resonates.

Deepen our soul, cause this is the way we were designed.

Then I love this one.

Proverbs 27 nine or oil and perfume make the heart glad and the sweetness of a friend comes from is earnest council.

So what?

Why is this so important?

Well because in the Bible and and in the way that God looks at your life, he is trying to get you out of your foolishness.

He is trying to get you to where not only you capable, but you actually experience the greatness that Jesus has achieved for your life, the fullness.

And in order for that to happen, you have to be a wise person.

Wisdom is a key element of emotional maturity.

Wisdom and discernment are a key element of really having emotional health and that, uh, fulfillment, satisfaction, wisdom is a lot more than morality.

As a matter of fact, most of our choices are not really about whether something is moral so much as whether it is wise and what wisdom and emotional healing and emotional maturity do for you is they teach you to the cern with foresight.

What will happen if I choose this?

What will happen if I choose that person?

What I've seen over the years are so many people who blame everybody else for their troubles that they want to say.

They're the one sane person in an insane world and rather gas who's always to blame for your choices and it's your choices and your relationship choices that are the greatest evidence of whether you're emotionally mature.

Are Your emotionally unhealthy.

I remember this one woman came to me Manny many years ago and she was livid.

My husband is a horrible husband.

He's terrible, he's awful.

He's no spiritual leader.

He doesn't really follow Christ enough.

He doesn't do what I want them to do in terms of spiritual for the family.

She was just going off on this guy and I sat there going home.

My Gosh, God, get me out of here.

Cause I knew the guy.

And in the south we have a saying for guys.

He was a good old boy.

All right?

He went to church.

He was faithful to his family.

He wasn't cheating on his wife.

He brought the paycheck home.

I mean, he wasn't, he didn't have a high spiritual Iq.

All right.

And he, he didn't have personality.

You have a leader whatsoever.

But there were all kinds of ways that he actually was a very good husband.

But she was furious with them and she was angry.

So I said, tell me the story, and she said, my husband left us and she, he left me with these kids and I had no one to take care of me any.

This guy came around and was nice to me and nice to my family and so I married him to get out of my situation because I was fearful.

Yes.

Who chose him?

Yeah.

And now who doesn't choose him?

Yeah,

the same person.

He was who he was, and then wisdom.

She would've said, guess what he's going to be who is going to be.

Yeah.

But she was convinced that with enough nagging, he would become what she always wanted him to become.

Has anybody ever found that to work then?

That's wisdom.

That's emotional immaturity.

She's screaming about his immaturity when she's revealing her own immaturity.

Now the problem was I knew if I told her the truth, she'd be mad at one more man.

That's wisdom.

I mean, it's painful for me sometimes because I will know the truth.

But you can't tell that person the truth because they're convinced it's everybody else and not me.

You understand what I'm saying?

The indications of your emotional maturity are found in your relationships and when you're blaming somebody else for your unhappiness, you are being deceived by the lies of Satan because wisdom is for you.

Emotional health is for you emotional maturity and in some ways this is not an easy thing, but the spirit of God is always working to grow you up.

So the Bible says that if you really want connections that are fulfilling, then you've got to choose.

You've got to know how to forge.

You not know how to maintain healthy friendships as a clear indication of your spiritual maturity.

If you look back in your past and there's a string of broken relationships, the only constant in your past is you and it's time for healing because you will only go as far as you can connect and relationships.

Now, friendships are basically one of the things that God designed you to need and to want.

As a matter of fact, they are the most satisfying of emotional connections and they can be brought into every connection, work, family, marriage, everyone, but they are what we need.

As a matter of fact, before the fall ever happened, we needed these relationships are loneliness or the need to connect to others is not weakness and it's not sin.

As a matter of fact, every other aches that you have, often it comes from the fall and cons from sin, but your your need to connect, your desire to connect to others is not a fall produced sinful reaction.

It is actually one of the things that not only makes you human but makes you most like God.

God himself is a friendship.

God has lived for eternity in communion.

That is why our God is not just one, but he is three in one.

The son has always lived in utter connection, deep connection with the father, loving the father, loving him as best friend loves, and then the father loves the son in such a way and all the needs of the sun and all the needs of the father met in that communion.

Then that union between the two of them and then the spirit proceeds from that union.

And it is the expression of the that the father and the son has.

So that when you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, you are baptized in the union and communion of the father and the son.

When you come to Christ, you're not calming just to escape how you're coming into the eternal friendship, uh, the father and you're in the inner circle.

Yes.

I mean, one of the indications is that human beings couldn't exist in paradise alone.

Some of you think I could please can I go now?

But we couldn't exist without friendship, without connection.

It was not paradise.

So what am I saying?

If you feel lonely, it's actually okay.

It's an indication that you're in touch with your design.

But if you've gotten to that place where you say, I need no one, I want no one.

You have shut off the very spark of God in your life.

You will never be mature.

I've had people say to me as they went through terrible divorces.

When I get perfectly healed, I'll come back and have relationships and I'm like, no, it ain't gonna happen.

You only see how damaged you are when you're in relationship and you only experienced the fullness of healing when you're unhealthy relationships and what happens a lot of times I, I love working with college students when they're really in those years of trying to figure out about a mate or other things like that.

I've had many of them come up to me and say, pastor, I don't need a spouse.

I don't need anybody in my life.

Particularly the girls will come to me and say, I don't need a man.

And I will say, I would say to them was, let's, let's explore that a little bit more.

What do you mean by that?

Well, I'm going to protect myself.

I'm gonna Yell, I'm gonna, you know, shield myself off.

I'm going to not experience hurt.

I'm not going to, you know, connect or invest in the way I look at us like, guess what's going to happen?

One, you're lying, you need, you are saying all this because you really, really need an radially.

Really want a man.

I can smell it.

It's like furniture here.

So you're lying and lying.

We'll never protect you.

But what it will do, it'll run off healthy people.

You guys, healthy people see the wall, they'll see the, the blockade.

They'll see that and they'll say, okay, this person doesn't want a relationship.

But the players will see the wall and say, ah, challenge.

I can meet this.

I can figure out what lie to tell to get behind the defenses and break this girl's heart.

You understand?

You cannot protect yourself from the Hertz by disconnecting.

You can only grow yourself by connecting to healthy relationships.

And this is the way God made you.

And when you are in a deep way with people, you are more like God than ever because that's how he exists.

That's how he lives.

Are you tracking with me in this?

Okay, so you should have, when I read that verse and it said there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother, you should have immediately said, oh, that sounds good.

Because this statement in the scriptures is how God made us.

We want someone who's in our lives, not because they have to be, but because they want to be friendship.

Bring something even greater than family in a way of family is stuck with you.

Am I my, my experience with my daughter sort of illustrates, I adore my daughter.

She is just a joy in my life.

Always has been in her teenage years.

I just thought she was the most beautiful young woman, partly because I think her mother is the most beautiful and she looks just like her, you know?

And so I would, I would say to my teenagers are, oh, Anna, you are so beautiful.

And she would look at me and she go, Dad, you have to say that you're my dad.

And I thought about it.

And it's like, yeah, I understand that.

In some ways you feel like your family is obligated.

They have to love you because you look like them.

They can't say you're ugly.

I mean, how many of us got that letter from college?

No Fun.

No mine, no fun.

Your son, you know, uh, kind of a thing.

You know, you, you, you, you go to your family.

Not always looking for like passion, but desperation sometimes type of thing.

But when you deal with your friend and what proverbs is saying is a true friend has committed him or herself to you passionately, but volitionally they have chosen you.

They have chosen to be.

That's why it's such a dangerous thing in one way because if they choose you then reject you.

It is more painful and it's why sometimes our connections are damaged is because our trust has been broken.

We've had people who seem to say to us, they would be with us through thick and thin, but they were nothing more than fair weather friends.

It's so easy to have lots of Facebook friends, but they have very little meaning.

Well, this commitment, this passion greater than a brother that's, it's not the same as what our culture is going for in our culture.

Romance and sex is everything.

Every tabloid you read, you don't ever see so-and-so is friends with so and so.

But you do see so and so is sleeping with so and so and that sells magazines.

I don't think selling magazines with your friends necessarily works, but all of this kind of everything is about who are you having sex with and are you attractive enough to have sex and are you doing this enough?

So I've, our society has gotten fixated with this explosive connection that we can't even handle, but not only is that the case, but in a traditional society then family is everything.

You belonged to your family, your family belongs to you.

What you do either brings honor to your family or shame to your family.

That's why this writing and proverbs is so powerful and it, it's telling you that it's the wisdom of God that transcends culture because Solomon was writing to a traditional culture in which family was everything and he was saying there is something greater in friendship even than family is.

Why this, these words should resonate with you.

This is the wisdom of God that I should have friends that I can count on and they can count on me.

The problem is this isn't a biological necessity.

There's no drive in you that says, I've got to have friends.

I got to have friends.

But there is a drive to say, I need to reproduce.

I need to have sex, I need to eat.

All of these kinds of things.

There's no social sociological drive.

You could spend the rest of your life and be a fairly productive member of our society just by working.

You could just work and produce and not have to connect as friends.

Just get, get your job done.

That's sociologically more effective.

And so what happens is only if you can hear the voice of God and the wisdom of God.

Do you realize that the emptiness of our life is when all we do is pursue the biological and the sociological.

Because when we're too busy and we're too obligated, there's no margin for sweetness, there's no margin for fulfillment.

And we live in a day where buisiness and all of these obligations are pulling at us and stressful ways and we have no time to make those deep emotional connections.

Are you hearing me?

Are you, are you taking this in?

Don't make me do all this work.

Be My friends right now.

So here's what proverbs says, we perish for a lack of friends.

It's such a beautiful picture.

When proverb says, true friends, friendship has a sweetness to it.

You have to understand this was a time in the ancient world, there were no, there was no sugar to add to anything.

There was no Splenda, no sweet and low.

None of those things.

If there was sweetness, it was discovered.

It's when you ate something and then you tasted that within the very nature of it was sweet.

And so what, what God is saying to you is that when you truly connect in healthy ways, whether it's friendship and your family, a friendship in your marriage or friendship at your work, whatever it is, but when you connect, you will taste a sweetness because it's the nature of true friendship.

But it also, uh, and studies and also, you know, just backing up what proverbs says, his friendship is always about a common love that has to be discovered.

So one of the ways that friendship is very unlike romance is usually with your friends.

You don't have this conversation.

We need to talk about our relationship.

Where's this going?

If you like it, put a ring on it, you know, you know, I mean you, you know you have that with your friends.

You don't, you don't hear from your friends.

You didn't come visit me for Christmas.

This is my turn.

We're going to have you for Thanksgiving this year.

You know, you're not going to hear obligations and stuff like that that you hear from family and romance.

So what is it that makes friendships so sweet is usually you're passionate about the same things.

Now I'll give you a little marriage advice.

That's not the easiest thing.

Many of us actually develop our marriages around there.

Orotic or the romantic, which is in a way, you know all about you and me.

And so when we actually discussed things and get into fights or disagreements, we don't know how to resolve them cause we don't know how to be friends.

And so one of the things that I began to realize if in my marriage was going to be sweet, it was going to be fulfilling.

I had to make some adjustments.

And one of those adjustments has always been interesting to me.

Um, there are certain things Lisa is not going to do.

She is never going to get really excited about football.

She'll go to a Yankees game and, but she won't sit there with me talking about Babe Ruth Lou Gehrig and all the different Yankees.

I know, you know, she doesn't care.

You know, she likes the hot dogs.

Uh, yeah, yeah.

That kind of stuff.

So all that stuff and, and if you don't, you don't realize we bond with strangers over things we're passionate about.

You look at, you look at when you go to the mets game or Yankees game or any of the Games and people are talking about, you know, stats and averages and teams and victories.

And suddenly this bunch of people can't relate to anybody socially are all friends.

You go to the grocery store, you want to make friends, just get in a long line, start complaining.

You'll all be passionate in that.

So I started, I started to realize, wait a minute, you, I can't get her to be passionate about this stuff, but I love her.

And I know she's passionate about certain stuff, so I'm going to, I'm going to join her in her passion.

So this week,

well, we'll talk about that.

Uh, but this week she has become passionate about this.

Marie Kondo about tidying all the women knew there wasn't no man.

So my wife's into it.

My daughter's into it.

All these people are into it.

So she goes, please just watch one.

I went, oh no.

So all day yesterday I was Marie Kondo thing, my closet I got, I got tons of clothes in my car, which I have said goodbye to.

I have told them, thank you for your service.

Thank you for what you taught.

I gently put them in my car.

I'm hoping they'll find a good home.

And you know what?

I have an extremely happy wife right now, right?

Because

you see friendship.

It's about being passionate about the same thing.

You feel connected.

When are you tracking with me in this?

All of us want this.

We need this.

The scripture says there's four marks of a, of a true friendship.

The first is constancy.

You absolutely want to know that this person's going to be with you through thick and thin.

The second is carefulness.

Emotional connection is a gift that you give to somebody else and that somebody else gives to you.

So therefore what proverbs says is you don't sing happy songs when your friend is sad.

What is saying there is, you know what hurts your friend.

That's what carefulness is.

You know what motivates your friend?

So in other words, what, what the wisdom of God says here is you will not sing a happy song to the sad heart of your friend unless you're not a friend.

Well, candor, scripture says it this way.

The wisdom of God says, faithful are the wounds of a friend.

I'm not wounding you because I'm hurt.

I'm wounding you because I want to prevent you from getting hurt.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend council.

It says, you know, it's fascinating how provers it explains life.

There are three types of people.

There's a simple person is a fool and there's a wise person.

The simple person listens to everybody's opinion and has none of their own.

They do whatever they think will approve and please others.

The fool says, I have all knowledge, I need know why?

So everybody else's opinion has no weight to them because they themselves are the know it all.

So the wise person, scripture says to healthy friends council and who knows how to get from people wisdom because the healthy friend knows I don't have all the wisdom I need to live my life.

Now these four really can be summed up in this phrase, friend.

A true friend always lets you in and never let you down.

Would you do this?

Would you turn to one of your neighbors?

Hopefully there's still your friend it turn to your neighbor and would you say to them, a friend always let you in and never let you down.

Do it one more time.

A friend always let you in and never let you down.

All right.

Some of your, some of your marriages just got better, but listen closely.

Okay?

This is not an inspiring list.

This is a crushing list because if you're honest, you're not constant.

You haven't been careful, you've often held back.

I've often held back saying things to friends because of it was afraid I would lose the friendship and many times I have given counsel that was stupid just because I thought I knew what was the best, even though I didn't know what they were going through.

Please, please hear me.

You need this.

You were made for this.

You were designed for this.

You have a long, you should in your heart have something happened when it says friend lets you in and never let you die, but there's only one friend who's that only Jesus always let you in and only Jesus never let you down.

There is no other friend who can fill the deepest foundational needs of your life.

To have these needs, to be emotional, to say, I want life to be suite is really being human, not weakness.

This is the way God designed you and he designed you that at the very foundation of your soul at the very, very hard, our center of your life.

You want to know that you have acceptance, which is a freedom from rejection.

Do you know what?

Most of the wounds in our capacity, the most of the wounds in our heart are because people who we want it to love us rejected us and it starts really early, really early.

The other thing is we want to know where significant.

We want to know that we have worth that we have value.

A lot of what we do is just to prove that we have worth and then the third significant emotional need that we have, and I'm talking about really foundational that's you have to get settled are you'll always be, is that you have to know you're safe.

You have to know there's a security that you can count on.

As a matter of fact, basically what this is saying is you want something that's greater than what you're afraid of.

That fear itself becomes something you're free from.

Now, the reason that I believe that these emotional needs, these deepest emotional needs, can only be mad at God and are worthy of you saying God, I will connect to you here is because of the very nature and character of God and this amazing truth that is in the narrative of creation.

God designed us to love other things than him.

Now, I think if I designed you, I designed you to love and serve me alone.

What I or God is so infinite, so awesome in his love, he says, yes, love me with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

And then he says, and love your neighbor as yourself, but he's basically saying, love your neighbor with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Love him like I'm asking you to love me.

Do you understand?

I mean, that is a big God and a big love.

He can be trusted.

He's not patty and his jealousy.

Now.

Now, some of you, if you're good Bible students, you'll immediately say, but it says in the scripture, I the Lord your God am a jealous God, but you have to understand it is not human jealousy.

See, our problem is we feel like if somebody loves somebody else, they're taking away love from me.

Particularly if you grow up in a family and love was given to a favorite or love was given to someone more than you, it feels like they have the love you should have had, but what God is saying here is I have a place in your life that no one else gets to have.

If anyone else has that place, that person or that thing as an idol, and I will not give them success.

Look, even in a just a human way, when you love somebody, they have a place nobody else has.

Lisa is the love of my life.

Nobody has her place and if anybody tries to take that place, I know some people in Brooklyn that I will call Jessica complain.

Come on now.

Maybe even in the Bronx, I'm not sure you understand our God made us to where not only are we to love him, but he loves us so much.

He gave us love for others and others to love us.

As a matter of fact, what this is speaking of is that you and I have these very legitimate emotional intimacy needs, but the problem is because we have not devoted our needs at the foundational level to God.

We have instead gone about meeting these legitimate needs in illegitimate ways.

And one way that you can understand sin is that when you take a legitimate need and you start meeting at in an illegitimate way, you have distance God from the place he has to have in your life.

And so when we understand these needs and we understand how important they are to us, we can start to bring them out into the light and stop being the broker of our own needs.

Stop manipulating using other people, but rather have a full tank to bring to every relationship.

Now these needs are real.

I've done some study over the years.

I, I, I was going to start with 10 very real, legitimate intimacy needs, affection, approval, acceptance, support, attention, encouragement, comfort, security, respect and forgiveness.

You need all 10 of these because you're a human being.

These are the connections with other people that make you feel loved.

But what I've found is because we've had deprivation, because of our personalities, we are more in touch with a few of these then all of these.

And so what I often do and what I'm asking you to do this week as I want you to get in touch, what are your three top needs here?

Intimacy needs.

Now, here's how I, I do it.

And, and Lisa does it.

So I looked at that list and I need them all.

They're all legitimate, but the ones I'm most in touch with as I love affection, I love approval.

That's why the clapping was so meaningful to me and I love respect.

Okay, so here's, here's, before we knew this, here's the way Lisa looked at those three needs.

She said, you're selfish, you're self centered, and I'm going to knock you down to size.

So every time I would go for approval, she's going to[inaudible] and she'd say, I love you, but that didn't feel like love.

So we found this out.

Okay, I Mike needs approval.

So she said, I'm going to try to give you approval.

So she came up to me and she goes, you look nice today.

And I said to her, elaborate, because I don't just want approval.

I want 30 minutes worth of approval.

You know, I want her to go on and I want to tell her that, you know, is it the color of my eyes, my clothes?

What is it?

You know?

And she goes, Ugh, I can never win with you.

She said, but we had to work at, it was awkward at first, but she, because she's accepted, because she knows she's significant because safe in the Lord, she can look at me and say, I can make these tweaks for him.

Now her three are completely different from mine.

So guess what I was giving her, I was giving her my three lots of affection, lots of approval, lots of respect.

She said, they're going, this doesn't touch me.

This doesn't touch me because she wants support, she wants comfort and she wants to feel safe.

She married the wrong guy to feel safe with, but, but she wants that.

Those are the things that she wants.

And so I had to start saying, okay, what does that look like?

So I'll take the support one.

Here's Lisa's philosophy in marriage.

You do things together.

No job is a one person job.

They're always two people jobs.

And I'm like, no honey, Christmas decorations or your job, you know?

Yeah.

So she, so I began to realize that it felt most romantic.

She loved me most or she felt most love from me.

When we go grocery shopping together, it is a social romantic event.

So I made the switch because I always thought it was hunt, gather, bring it home, kill it, eat it.

And so I had to make this switch.

So okay.

Yesterday was Marie Kondo Day.

Friday was blouse shopping day.

Now if I didn't love her and know that that meant love to her, that would be held to me.

Because I see lots of blouses that perfectly fit that she doesn't buy until we've gone to every single store.

Right.

At any, any am I alone in this up here.

But I tell you when I do that, now I do make some conditions.

The stores have to have a chair.

I can sit in and I do get to use my phone in the chair, you know?

But she loves that I am with her.

You know?

Even though I know nothing about blouses, oh, that's beautiful.

Deer.

Oh, I liked the shape of that one.

Oh, I'd coordinate so well.

I've learned all kinds of lingo.

I didn't learn it because it's in my DNA.

I learned it because I love her and she's my friend.

[inaudible] but I do not believe that if you live your life trying to meet those 10 needs, you will ever be satisfied.

If you haven't first had ds three needs settled and these are only set, no friend can settle these needs for you.

Because see, you don't just want to be accepted.

You want unconditional acceptance and there is no other unconditional acceptance, acceptance except in Christ because you are in Christ.

You are loved as if you are Christ.

Nobody else is going to accept you like that.

No one else is going to say, you know, for your sake I died and for your sake I now live and the life which you now live in me, you live by the faith of the son of God who loved you and gave himself for you.

Not only that, but think about this.

Nobody else is going to give you a settled significance.

I mean even when you do good things the next day they're expected things or they are demanded things and many times even though you've performed well in the past, you will still hear people say, what have you done for me lately?

Because that most people significance their value is conditional only in Christ is that unconditional.

He has set your value for all times across has settled that you are worth the life of God's own son, but not only that, we all need to feel free from fear.

We need to sense that we are secure and only in Christ is a true because the the most wise men that I've ever known set it this way.

For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

Death.

Where is your Stang?

I've found if you're not afraid of death, what?

What else is possible to make you afraid?

If you're, if you've overcome the big one, all the little ones fall down.

Friendship.

God is a friendship.

Jesus didn't come to wound you.

He came to take the wounds for you.

This is so powerful.

You are so evil.

I'm your friend.

I'm going to be candid.

You are so evil.

Christ had to die for you, but he didn't die for you because you're a center.

He died for you because he's your friend.

Greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.

Do you understand?

Every, every other religion in the world acknowledges somewhat that God is holy or transcended or great or whatever it is, but no one else has a word for you that I came to make you my friend, and that's where the sweetness comes from.

Where you stand with me, I'm going to ask you to receive this connection.

Maybe the first time you ever received God as your friend or Jesus as your friend.

That might be the first time.

It might be one of many times.

Listen, he is the Lord of Glory.

He is the Almighty.

He is the holy one, but didn't come saying, worship me is the holy one.

Worship me as the Almighty one.

He can't.

He said, I came to lay down my life for my friends.

You understand my friend is the Lord of Glory and the Lord of Glory counts me as his friend and in that it's settled.

I'm accepted.

I am significant.

I don't need anybody else's significance because the king of kings and Lord of Lords says I'm significant to him for the joy set before him, he endured the cross for me.

I was that joy set before him because the only thing he didn't have before the cross that he had after the cross was you.

So you're the joy set before him, but you have to make the connection.

He has the resources, the tank is full.

Will you let him pump in?

So I'm gonna ask you to do it cause verbalization as a way to express faith.

So I'm asking you to do this.

Would you lift your hands up like a child lifts up, hands to father or mother?

Would you lift your hands up in a way that's, that's real to you?

Like you are the child and he is the father.

But it's really friendship that the father's offering.

It's a deeper role than simply family.

It's a chosen, committed passion.

So would you say these words with the I received that in Christ.

I am accepted.

[inaudible]

now let that kind of come in and let's say a few more words together.

You love me as if I were Christ.

Cause I am in Christ.

I am loved as Christ.

I am accepted in the very beloved of the father.

The love the father shares with the sun is now mine unconditionally forever.

Now I'd like you to take your arms and just folded kind of like you're hugging yourself a bed

[inaudible]

and I want you to say these.

I receive a settled significance.

My life was worth the life of the son of God.

I have value, I have worth.

I come against every curse that has said, I am nothing, that I'm worthless, that I'll never amount to anything I have.

I have value, I have significance.

Let it come.

Some of you've heard those words, those prophecies over you.

They're not true.

There is significance in your life and there always will be.

You are worthy.

If you're thinking of suicide today, you have worth, you have value.

Choose life today you are significant, but even if that, those two are wonderful, but would you extend your hands really wide?

See, I asked you to do this because this is your most vulnerable position.

You're not protecting your heart.

You can't defend yourself.

You're wide open and it's only when you're wide open.

When you let down your defenses, when you quit being self protective, you let the hardness go away.

You let the shield go away.

I mean, as long as you protect yourself, he will let you, but you will not grow.

You will not heal.

Today we're ripping off the bandaid, taken off the shield, letting the light get to the wounds, but we're doing it because we're safe.

So would you say this Lord in you, I am safe.

I am secure.

You are my strong tower.

When I'm under attack, when the world seems against me, I will run into my strong tower and I will be safe.

You will never leave me.

You'll never forsake me.

I am free from rejection.

I am free from insignificance and I am free from fear in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord, we seal what you're doing in Jesus name.