Relationships Conversation - Ps Luke Kennedy & Kelly Goldsworthy

All right.

How are we doing gang?

Are you doing okay?

Would you guys make Kelly welcome?

I'm so thankful for Kelly.

Amazing.

And I love your jacket too.

Welcome.

Can you t is your mic on?

Don't know.

Do we have any sound people in this church?

Thank you.

There we go.

Thank you.

Is that better?

Okay.

Um, okay, you and I um are gonna talk about relationships.

Yeah.

Sounds fun.

Yeah.

Anyone else, anyone else nervous?

Yeah.

Um, okay, so Christians, we are not.

We should, I feel like we Christians should be amazing and perfect at relationships.

By saying sorry to cut you off.

Luke is jet lagged, and he was about to say, we are not supposed to be in relationships, weren't you?

I'm so jet lagged right now, but um so if I say anything about supporting the roosters, that is why.

Okay.

So we are supposed to be in relationships, if you want me to um kick off here.

Yes.

It's uh that way you want to be to kick off.

I do want you to kick off.

And we've got some key scriptures.

Do we want to move into those or not?

Yeah.

Genesis chapter 2, verse 18.

Genesis 2:18

Oh, you've got it there.

It says on the screen, it's right here.

Oh, thank you.

There we go.

The Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone.

For the man to be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him.

Yeah.

That's the only one I've got.

Is it yeah, let's talk about that.

So, what I wanted to ask you, is there something I wanted to ask you?

If I did uh leave the Bible seam, sorry, guys.

Basically, I wanted to start off by saying we are supposed to be in relationship.

We have relationships from the moment we wake up to when we go to bed.

And if I'm talking about the context of you, Pastor, and me in my work, people will come with problems of relationships more than anything else.

So I think relationships is a very hot topic.

And if we have uh something to learn from the Bible, it's that we're supposed to be in them.

So I wanted to set the foundation of this is actually very important for us to talk about, it's very important for us to learn how to be good at relationships, but also very important us for learn to learn that we are supposed to be in relationship with Christ as well.

Yeah.

So, like if we talk and think about theologically, like God, we believe in a Trinity.

We believe in one God, three persons, God in relationship.

God is a relational being, He relates together, and then He's made us in His likeness.

And so we are also made for relationship.

If you think about success in life, when you get to, if you've seen people on their deathbed, no one's there thinking and or boasting about their great career or their that they really are so dialed into the relationships that they have.

So if if we are going to be obviously representing, um if we're gonna be reflecting God, we're gonna be relational beings.

Yeah, but I think we also really struggle with relationships, right?

Yeah.

All right, some more than others, obviously.

I think I probably have more trouble than Luke.

Um, and I think we all come across people, especially within families, who will disagree with us, who will annoy us, who will we will find difficult.

Um, so what we wanted to delve into was some hot issues, possibly, that um can go under the banner of relationships.

And the first one I really felt was important was this concept, this cultural concept of find your people, which is very um relevant today, and I think relevant for our young culture.

And Luke and I both uh sort of really honed in on this because the Bible doesn't say we're supposed to find our people, the Bible says that we're supposed to love people, um, and I find that difficult.

So if you find that difficult, you're not alone.

Um, and I don't, Luke, you probably do, maybe less than us.

I don't know where you get this image from me from.

Um find your people, I think, can become a meaning of like find people who are just like me so we won't have any conflict.

Like you vote the same as me, you think the same as me, you like the same coffee as me.

So it's just like create this ease where there's never any conflict, and it's almost like I I can love you because you're just like a reflection of me.

You're so much like me that I love you, you're amazing, but really I just want everyone to be like me around me, then um is that really like a way to like a healthy life?

No.

No, I think I think because also uh what you're saying is it reflects, you reflect me, therefore we love each other, and it's easy to love.

But I think if also if they're reflecting you, then you get validated all the time about how great you are.

You don't have to change, you don't have to be somebody who has to grow because somebody's always saying to you by who they are, by what they believe in, by what they do, that oh, we're the same, so we're great.

And obviously that's easy, but in community, in church, in families, if we have people that reflect something in us that maybe we don't like, then we have to then grow.

Um, or we have to work on uh understanding that self-reflection means I might be the problem, and that's where find your people makes it easy to do life, and that's why I understand when I hear it, oh, just find your people, find the people that make you happy, that bring you joy.

I go, yeah, sure, that sounds lovely, let's do that.

But obviously, if we love Jesus and we want to be more like him, we want to see his heart, then no, we can't just find our people.

Yep.

So if the goal is to become a person of love like Christ, that's the vision of my life, is to become a person of love in the image of Christ, then if you look at the life of Christ, he is not finding his people.

He's like literally going to the so many people who are so different than him, and he's loving those people.

And that's the call of what it means to be a Christian is is so much of that is to love people who don't look like me, who don't sound like me, um, don't uh look and have the same cultural background.

I mean, we have so many different countries in our church, and I'm really excited that you know we've we we don't have we've never had any uh issues of culture in our church, cultural background, countries, different races, we've never had an issue of that in our church because um we're here to love each other around Christ forming us into people of love, that's why we that's what we're doing.

And on that concept of forming, so if we're trying to be formed into the image of Christ, um where am I going with this?

Then if people are, if we're just finding our people, we're not being formed in the image of Christ, we're being formed in the image of ourselves, and that is never going to end well.

But if we are finding people who are smoothing our edges, for want of a better description.

Meaning they're annoying.

They're annoying.

Yeah.

Or they're reflecting something that's annoying in us, and we can go, oh, I'm actually not very healthy right there, um, then we're inevitably going to move closer to Christ.

Yes.

Through either they're the person that's creating the issue or I'm creating the issue, I do have to take this to the foot of the cross, and therefore I am going to Jesus where I should be anyway.

Yeah, absolutely.

So in a church like this, um where you have a lot of people, um, one of the things I hear from that I see from a lot of people who are new to Christianity or new new to faith in Jesus, they come into a church like this and they think everyone's perfect.

Like everyone's just so amazing, and there's just never going to be any drama here because we're all like, you know, everyone's so friendly and it's so great.

And then you stay for a little while and you realize, oh, actually, nobody's perfect here, and you are actually going to get offended.

But but take heart because this is actually part of God's plan to actually disciple you into a person of love.

Why would you need to forgive if you've never been offended?

And also, why would you need to be forgiven?

I think it's very powerful too, because if you're the issue, if you're the one creating offense, then you have to learn that you are also forgiven, which I think for a different personality is harder than if I have to forgive you, then you actually have to be forgiven too.

Yeah.

So um, so one of the ways that we try to escape that is by giving people labels.

Yeah?

Tell us about that.

Sure, let me tell you about that.

I I think this was in the area of toxic people.

So this is another thing that I hear all the time is that what um people say to me, I hate to remove myself because they're toxic.

Uh, and then when I ask more questions, it's really that they just annoyed you, or they pushed your button, or they said something you didn't like, or um, they upset you, or they didn't align with your political views, or you know, whatever it is at the time.

And that is another way that we remove ourselves from community and move into another, fine people is we create these labels of their toxic.

And I'm not uh a bit of an important thing to say here abuse is very different.

Um, being uh being in a position where you are being abused, I'm not saying that, I'm talking about just the label of a toxic person because we don't like them or because they don't like us.

So uncomfortable people being labeled toxic as my escape from having to do difficult things, meaning like engage with people who are not like me.

It's a very easy way to escape that.

So social media is pushing that a lot, even with family members.

I've I hear so many people saying now that like cutting off your family is a good thing.

Um, just just to preface no one in history has ever thought that in like all of human existence, no one has ever thought that until about five minutes ago.

Okay, so if you want to be a social experiment on cutting off your family, um I I think you maybe want to give caution to that.

Yeah, because um part of being a part of a difficult family, I come from a very difficult family, yeah, very difficult.

Uh, and part of that has been God has used that difficulty to form me, not malform me into like um into maybe that dysfunction, but to actually grow my ability to love difficult people.

Yeah, yeah, I can relate to that too.

I definitely have some difficult family members, and when I think about when they've hurt me or they have said I have hurt them, uh then I go through the journey of well, they're wrong or I don't like them, or um, they're dysfunctional, or they're not good enough, whatever I want to say, and then you uh if I come back to Jesus and then I realize okay, I might be the problem here, or um what can I do?

What can I learn?

How can I get closer to Jesus through this difficult situation?

So I guess that maybe is reframing this into take it back to Jesus and you'll realize that actually they've been brought to you for good reason.

Yeah, yeah.

So boundaries is like another way, um another healthy thing, a good thing that can sometimes be turned into like a not a healthy thing.

Yeah, so I'm seeing boundaries now being used as almost like behavior management.

And I was talking to Luke about this that um I I will punish you by putting up a boundary until you behave in a certain way that makes me feel okay.

Um, and that's not boundaries.

Um, that's obviously just a very dysfunctional way to uh treat somebody.

But if somebody hurts you continuously and then we say, well, I'm putting up a boundary, I'm going to ghost them, for example, um, until they behave in a way that's acceptable for me, then that's not uh healthy.

As I say it, I can hear it, but hopefully you can hear that it's not a healthy way to um be in relationship.

But then what do you do?

And this was my question to Luke is that okay, so you have these relationships that are difficult, that you want a ghost because you're hurting.

Um, what do you do?

What do you do?

That's good.

I'm so glad we have a psychologist here to tell us.

What do you do?

Um, I think what one of the things that um um Tim and I used to train with um a bunch of guys in Japan um in jiu-jitsu.

I trained for a very short amount of time, so please don't think that I'm good at it.

Um Tim is good, he's amazing, he's willing to fight anyone in this room, anytime, any place.

I'm joking, okay.

If you know Tim, he's uh so kind.

Um we would train with these guys, and that was super rough, really rough.

Um, really in the world, really living that life to the max um with the way they treated women and um alcohol and and lots of lots of stuff, okay.

So we used to go and train with them, and then we'd often, you know, every couple of weeks or whatever, we'd go after training, we'd go to the pub with them and talk with them, okay?

And some of the conversations were pretty wild.

And I remember I remember one of these guys, he's a Russian guy, amazing black belt and juices, he's like incredible fighter.

I remember him saying to me one day, is your wife okay that you're out with us?

Because we're a pretty bad lot.

And I remember saying to him, My wife is so glad that I'm here because she knows I'm influencing you, you're not influencing me.

And you are about to get some Jesus in your life.

And they everyone would laugh, okay?

Ha ha ha ha.

Um, and so we'd have a great time with them.

I'm I'm here because I'm I'm secure in who I am, and I'm here to influence you.

I'm not here to play, I'm not here to be here to be led by you and to follow your life.

The opposite of that is happening here.

I'm very confident in who I am.

I'm not following you.

I'm inviting you to come and see.

Um anyway, a couple of years later, I remember that same guy in that same place leading that guy to faith on the street, and now he's a follower of Jesus right now.

He never thought that would happen, but it's happened since then.

And I and I just think that's that's something that I have thought about is instead of just cutting people off that are disagreeing with me, I need to have confidence in who who I am and who God's made me to be.

Um, the the boundaries in my life that I have, that I can actually go into situations that uh people are not like me, they're difficult, and I can actually go and bring light into those situations.

Yeah.

And boundaries are important.

I just want to preface that as well.

That uh Jesus gave us many examples of when he walked away.

Uh so I do think that's important to say as well.

But uh he the proper love that he showed wasn't that he would let anybody do whatever they wanted to him.

Uh he did know when he had to walk away and when he had to stay.

So uh um that's important to say too.

Yeah, there's a story about that, the rich young ruler.

Yeah, yeah.

So the rich young ruler uh thanks for leading me into that.

The rich young ruler was, I think, is a really great story in this context because if we look at it through the lenses of what we've been taught, which is that you give all your money away or everything that you own away, then that's a whole different story.

But if we you look at it through the lens of relationship, we're learning something different.

Jesus is showing boundaries, but he's also showing uh very secure love.

Because what he's doing is he's saying to somebody who comes to him for help, it sort of mentorship, like I'm doing everything right, but you know, what do I need to do?

And he says, give everything away.

And then the rich young ruler, what I could imagine was quite disappointed, but also probably quite disgruntled, he was very rich, walked away, and Jesus said, uh, was quoted saying, um, he walked away, but I loved him, and I loved him.

And I think what I wanted uh to emphasize was that Jesus didn't follow him, he let the rich young ruler walk away, um, but he still loved him.

And two things can be held very true right now for Jesus, I think, is that he knew what he had to say, and he knew it was going to be difficult, and he knew it was gonna be difficult to hear, but he also loved him.

He didn't chase him, and I think today uh we would possibly see that happen.

We would say something that was hard to hear, Luke would walk away, and I'd go, Oh, Luke, come back.

Sorry, you don't have to give everything away, just do half if we can still be friends.

Just 10%.

Just 10%, yeah.

Yeah, it's such a pastor move.

Um, or I would chase him because I want him to like me, because I'm like, oh, you've just walked away, your reaction was really negative, I feel bad, therefore I have to chase you down because I need you to like me.

Jesus didn't do that, he showed a very healthy response to somebody being disappointed with him, a very solid response that says, I love you, I'm gonna let you go.

Yeah.

So that kind of security, how can you become secure?

Because I remember, like all of us, feeling so insecure in relationships, um, especially as a teenager, like like many of us, felt so insecure.

How can you become secure enough to have that kind of response?

I mean, I'm gonna say not just teenagers, but 20s, 30s, 40s.

I think there's so much insecurity.

Uh I've struggled for years with working out how to, I don't, I don't know not a people pleaser, but if Jesus, like in Philippians 2, I don't know what verse it is, he talks about um count others above you, you know that um think others more highly than yourself, yeah.

Um and so if Jesus, if I'm gonna get him to love me, then I have to think of myself as nothing, and therefore everybody else is more important to me.

Um, and I'm going to meet the needs of everybody that I'm with, and I'm pretty good at it too.

I know how to talk to somebody, know what they need me to say and say it.

Or in a room, I know how to walk into a room and go, oh, that person needs this, I'll do this, I'll do this.

And then you get the validation of I'm a great server.

I can meet the needs of people, therefore, Jesus loves me.

And but what I think uh maturity or life experience or doing a lot of stuff wrong, like I've done, is that if I walk into a relationship saying, What do they need from me for Jesus to like me?

I can walk into a relationship and say Jesus already loves me.

I'm no better than no worse than that person.

So I'm coming from a place of love that's full of security as opposed to a place of love that's super empty and trying to meet the needs, therefore, Jesus will love me.

And I think people pleasing is different.

It's not my personality, but people pleasers will do the same.

I have to get that person to like me because then they'll like Jesus in me.

Yeah.

And uh it's a very uh empty way to live because not only do you lose the sense of yourself, but you also don't understand how much Jesus loves you without that person validating whether they like you or not.

Wow, this is this is so good right now, by the way.

This when you said that to me, that hit me so hard because if you actually really do care about other people, like have an evangelistic heart, you want to see people come to faith, that kind of thing, it can be so easy to become a people pleaser.

Yeah, sure.

I think too for me, it can be so easy to be less about um pleasing people, but more about making sure their needs are met, because then Jesus will love me.

Yeah, he will see me as a good and faithful servant because I have met the needs of those around me.

And then that validation will uh just the vicious cycle will keep going because okay, that's what I've got to do to get the love of Christ.

Yeah.

And that's not ever going to end well, but also is not secure.

Yeah, that's such a shaky foundation.

Um, John chapter 5, um, Jesus actually speaks pretty directly to this with the Pharisees.

John 5 · chapter mention

Um, he says, I've come to you in my Father's name and you do not accept me.

But if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept them.

How can you believe since you accept glory from one another, but you do not seek the glory that comes from God?

Meaning that you're doing things to get the approval of people, but you're not living for the audience of one.

You're not living for the audience of God or receiving the encouragement and the praise that God wants to actually pour into your heart, which makes you secure, but you're trying to get that what only God can give you, you're trying to get that from everyone else around you, and they can't give it to you.

It'll never be enough.

No one can ever encourage you enough to fill the hole in your life that only God can speak into.

And I think I've I've done that, I've certainly done that.

I remember um being on my knees so often in my bedroom as a teenager, as a new Christian, and being so desperate for God to deal with my insecurity because I knew I hated being insecure, I hated the fact that I.

Really wanted people to love me.

And I think the only way that I was able to overcome that, and you can't lead anyone if you if you are desperate for their approval, by the way.

You just can't cannot do it.

Um, the only way I could overcome that was to hear constantly the voice of the encouragement from my father, my heavenly father, to have him speak over and over and over encouragement into my heart, where his voice became the loudest voice in my life.

In your head.

In my head.

I was gonna say in my psyche.

Is that a thing?

Sure.

Okay.

In my soul.

Yeah, that's good.

I think it moves into people pleasing, makes it really easy for you to control your environment as well.

Um because if we desperately need people's approval, um that we're giving the pet what am I trying to say in this, Luke?

If the if the if you I am controlling my environment and I need you to like me, um, therefore I will feel good and Jesus will love me, you know, um, then you're constantly controlling your environment.

And we're going back to that, um, you're only gonna find your people, you're only gonna hang out with those who make you feel great, you are gonna control your environment completely so it validates, and like I said, it's that vicious cycle of this is never gonna change, and you lose yourself completely in that and you lose your identity.

Yeah.

Um, can I ask you, um, well, I've got you here, about conflict.

Because I think a lot of us here, if you'd agree, um, we don't like conflict.

That's because we're not psychos.

And if you do like conflict, you might be in trouble.

That's an issue.

That's it might be an issue.

So if we don't like conflict, but we love each other, but we don't like conflict.

What are we gonna do about that?

Because we gotta we've got to work this out together, church.

So can you please fix us?

No.

Um, no, I don't know.

I uh I let's talk about common conflict.

Um, I think we're being increasingly uncomfortable with being uncomfortable.

And that is my issue with conflict, is that I'm not suggesting we all walk around and tell each other what we don't like about each other.

That's obviously not what would be good in a community, but we are uncomfortable with being uncomfortable because uncomfortable means, and it goes back to this theory, is if we're not valued, uh, if we're not seeing our value in Christ, then if we're uncomfortable or we're making somebody uncomfortable with our conflict, then therefore we're not being liked, or um, there's something wrong with us, or we're broken, or we have to do better.

And and those concepts are very common in discussion now among people.

So we'll avoid conflict, we'll ghost conflict, we'll walk away from a people, we'll label them in order to not feel uncomfortable, and therefore we don't have to change, we don't have to grow.

We can say that, oh, I know the part that I've played in this, and I know um I know what I've done, I'm still gonna walk away though.

I'm not gonna change, therefore, the person that we have hurt or has hurt us is not more important than us.

But if we're entering those relationships with I'm no better, no worse than you, then our value is going to be put on the other person that we may have hurt.

Does that make sense?

So instead of that, we just ghost people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Has anyone ever done any ghosting?

Yeah.

Yeah, one honest person, I see your hand back there.

Um he's really good at ghosting.

Is he?

Yeah.

Okay, that's your husband, by the way.

Okay.

Um, they're dead to me.

They're dead to me.

You're dead to me.

Sure.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the period of time of you're dead to me, I'm hurting, I need to heal, I don't know how to respond to this, I'm not sure what to do.

Um, all those questions, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, truly.

Uh I just think if you're dead to me forever, there may be a problem.

Yeah.

Because somebody might actually do it to you too.

Because you might actually be dead to somebody else, and that doesn't feel good.

And then what I was chatting with Luke about, which I thought sort of sat powerfully, was um if you are doing this and this is a philosophy that you're building your relationships around, is that what you are doing to Jesus?

Are you ghosting him or is he ghosting you?

Because if you are attacking relationships with the mindset of what can I get from this person?

If I'm not getting anything, then they're dead to me.

Then are you doing that to Jesus?

He did not give you what you thought you wanted or needed, therefore he's dead to me.

And that's a dangerous place to be at.

And of all the relationship talk, is it not really desperately important unless we bring it back to Christ?

Because at the end of the day, if we do a rubbish job at all of this, we're still gonna hopefully go home to him, stand in front of him.

We he still will love us.

Yeah, it's amazing, it's true, right?

Yeah, I feel like I feel like cheering.

Um that's a good that's a good baseline to be at.

Like even if you do terrible relationships the rest of your life, Jesus will still love you.

You could put that on a shirt.

That's it.

Just rubbish, don't worry.

Someone should make it up.

Jesus loved you.

Jesus loved you.

Um it's true that I just think it's the it takes the pressure off, and what I'm trying to do is create hope because we are living in a culture that's quite heavy on what we're supposed to be doing, our expectations, what we're supposed to be fulfilling, how many people we're supposed to be liking, all blah blah blah.

But I think if we take put a little bit of hope on it, um, it takes the pressure off having to do the right thing, be better, be better at this and that, and puts the emphasis on you if go back to the foot of the cross, Jesus loves you, you are okay in him, and then go back out.

Yeah, give it a crack.

Yeah, amazing.

Um so dealing with conflict, if if someone has offended you, you're maybe new in the church, someone's offended you, what would be the best thing to do with that?

You tell me.

Maybe talk, maybe talk about that problem with a bunch of other people and and get their advice, maybe?

Yeah, no, no, but maybe don't do that.

Um I I think the I think if we attach value, let's go back to our value, and if our value comes from Christ and somebody has offended us, uh obviously the first thing to do is to go back to him.

I don't think we underestimate how much he will reveal in us what we need to see in order for that relationship and that uncomfortable discussion to be um had in a way that's positive.

And what I mean is he will reveal in you what you need to see, not necessarily what the other person has done that has hurt you or what's wrong with them.

It'll usually be what you need to see in you, and that is there's way more power in that because you're um saying to Christ, what what do I do?

And if he reveals in you, hey, this is something that could be worked on, uh, then you're going to inevitably be better at that conflict.

Yeah.

Uh because you're going at it with, okay, you've hurt me, or there's been some dysfunction, or you've offended me, um, but hey, I'm um I'm not great either.

I'm no better, no worse than you.

So how do we be in relationship?

Does that yeah that that scripture, Matthew 18, which is like the gold standard for how to deal with um uh problems in relationships in church, uh, it says if your brother sins against you, then go directly to your brother, point out the fault between the two of you in order to win back your brother.

That's the goal, not in order to show them that that's right, you're better than them.

Yeah, and to win them back, it's very important, I think, because to win them back is to win them back in relationship with you and relationship with Christ.

It's not to win them back to what you want them to be or win them back to behave the way you want them to behave, it's winning them back to be in relationship with you.

Uh, and if we reframe how we look at somebody offending us, then it's less about, oh, I've just been hurt and that was unfair.

It's more about uh what does um where's Jesus in this?

Yeah.

Because it and it takes two.

If the other person is not ready or doesn't see it, or doesn't want to see it, or doesn't like you, then okay.

But you can still go back to Christ and say, what do I do?

Yep.

Yep, that sounds harder.

I'd rather just ask ChatGBT what to do.

Yeah, or do that.

It's harder, it's less lazy, but it's the real substance of real community.

And by the way, real community is gonna become the such the premium product of the future.

Yeah, like and relationships is gonna, yeah, it's a commodity.

The relationships is gonna, I don't want to talk about it like a commodity, but if you understand what I mean, like the premium experiences of life are more and more going to become genuine friendship and relationship, yeah, outside of what AI can do and what other what other things can do functionally.

Yeah, relationships will and people who are good at relationships are gonna become like incredibly valuable in society.

Yeah um and real authentic relationships, but that takes work though, it's actually quite hard to build really good friendships with people.

You have to, you have to, it takes a lot of investment.

Yeah.

I think it also takes a lot of investment into yourself, and that's the hard part.

I think it's less about investment into other people.

Uh, we could all put on a show, but it's more investment into what part are you a good friend?

That's good.

Like, am I good to be in relationship with?

Because uh You are.

Oh, thanks.

Yeah.

Um, because I if we start off with the foundation of our value is in Christ, we are loved by Christ, we are okay in him, um, then the rest, that foundation, the rest can grow.

And remember, if we're rubbish, Jesus still loves us.

Yeah.

I found the same thing to be true in marriage too.

Um, one of the great joys of my life is the confidence in knowing that my wife really seeks the Lord.

She's a prayer, she's in scripture, she loves to seek God.

So I know, I have this confidence, and she feels the same way about me.

Is that I know if there's a drama, I have this confidence.

Jesus will get her.

And Jesus, she knows Jesus will get me.

That's right.

Jesus will like speak to me and say, Luke, go back there and apologize right now.

You know, he will get on me.

And the same for her.

What a beautiful thing to have in your life.

Two people who are hearing from God bring so much wholeness into a marriage.

Even if you've got, even if your starting place is quite dysfunctional, if you would just keep submitting to God, two people who keep submitting to God, you will get to a healthier place over time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, what about then?

What do you do?

We've talked about other people being very dysfunctional and toxic and and the problem.

What about if I'm the problem?

Because if you don't have any crazy friends, chances are you are that friend.

What are you meant to do?

What scripture do we have for this?

Do we have any scriptures?

Therefore, there is now the condemnation for those who are in crazy.

Romans chapter 8, verse 1.

Romans 8:1

Yeah.

Um, and I and I do love that other one, um, 1 John 4.19, we love because he loved us first.

And it does come back to everything that we have been saying.

Is um it is first of all, we have to know that we are forgiven.

Um, and I think that's a very powerful concept because we're easy.

We could say it, we can say, oh, I'm forgiven, I'm loved.

Um, but if we have a problem forgiving others, then we possibly don't believe that we're forgiven ourselves.

Um, was that a time thing?

Was it?

Oh, yeah, it's time.

And and that um is like we've been saying, the foundation that we lay has to be secure enough that we know who we are in Christ.

We know we're no better, no worse.

We know that we are forgiven.

If we know we are forgiven, it is so much easier to forgive those around us because we know we need it just as much.

Yeah.

And that is a very secure place to be.

And if we can say, I really am no better, no worse, you are as forgiven as I am.

Uh, therefore, it's not only important for me to forgive you, but it's uh it's imperative to my relationship with Christ because I have to know that He forgives me, because I am going to not be great.

Amen.

Yeah, Amen.

So if you uh find yourself like maybe I felt this like you don't know how to make friends.

I don't know, I don't feel like I have many friends or I'm able to make many friends.

I think what you're hearing us say today is the foundation of good friendships is knowing who you are in Christ, being confident in the love of God for you.

Yeah, that I am a person who is deeply loved.

It's the foundation of me being able to have a good friend.

Yeah.

Therefore, if I know that I am loved, I am also lovable.

Yes.

I can give out love, but I am also lovable.

And that's a difficult concept for people to believe these days.

Especially if you've come from a um a difficult family or difficult childhood, the the the drive towards performance, to perform for other people's love is really there.

It's in your heart.

And what you need to do is let the Holy Spirit come and wash over your life again and again and again and tell you how much he loves you, not because of your performance, but because you are a child of God.

And that will change the way that you relate to other people.

And it's countercultural in the sense that culture says you perform this way, then you are great, then you will be liked, then you will be accepted.

Um, and countercultural uh Christianity means that we're saying no matter what you are doing in this season of your life, no matter take it, you know, for what I mean it, the heart behind it, no matter how rubbish you are doing, uh he still loves you.

And that's a very grounding place to start your day.

Yeah, it is.

Could we pray a little bit?

Yeah.

Maybe um right now we could hear that voice.

Um if you were to become an expert on anything, I think you would want to become an expert in hearing the voice of the Father speak deeply into your heart.

Yeah, it's not that it's hard, it's just that there's so many other voices in my heart, in my mind, that I'm that I'm finding it hard to like, you know, dial in the radio to hear the frequency of the voice of God.

But if you can find that frequency, I can tell you you can almost get through anything if you can hear God's voice.

So would you just let Him now just encourage you?

Speak into your heart, maybe speak to some of the insecurities in your life that are causing dysfunction.

And maybe even God could bring some healing into your life.

Can we just pray together?

Thank you, come, Holy Spirit.

I pray now you'd come and speak to us.

And God would you silence every other voice?

The voice of condemnation and fear and performance.

In these areas of our lives, God, that where we have um areas of unhealed parts and brokenness in our own in our own lives, God, would we just come and lay them at your feet right now?

Help us, God.

Help us to become secure in who you've made us to be.

Would you fill our hearts full of love so that we can love others?

Thank you, God, that we can love others because you have first loved us.

And by faith, we receive that we are deeply loved by you.

Set us free, God, from performance and the insecurity and how we relate to others.

Set us free today, God.

And those here who maybe even feel far from you today, God, I pray you bring them close.

Draw them close to you.

Give them the courage to receive you.

Thank you, Lord.

We're gonna take communion together.

You guys are gonna bring it up.

Um put it on the table in a moment.

And you know, the beautiful thing about communion is it's an embodiment of the gospel, of Jesus' love for you.

It's an embodiment of that.

We sometimes call communion a means of grace, which means it's one of the ways that God shows you his grace.

It's a it's a way of giving you his grace.

And we're gonna take this body, this bread, which represents the body of Christ broken for us out of his desperate love for us, his body broken on that cross.

And then we're gonna take this grape juice, um, which represents, Jesus says, a covenant between you and God, and that it's not based upon your performance, how good you are.

Thank God for that.

We're not in and out and in and out based on how good we are, we're just simply we are brought in by the love of Christ, and there's nothing I can do to own my way in, except receive it by faith.

Yeah, that I am a child of God.

So I'd love to look each one of you in the eye and say, you are forgiven.

Receive it.

Receive the forgiveness of Christ.

You are accepted into the family of God.

So we're gonna take it together.

Would you stand with me?

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna start over here, and you can come down the front, um, take your communion, and you can go back to your seat.

You don't need to wait, okay?

I'm gonna pray, and then you don't need to wait.

Um, you can come up, take communion, and then um move forwards.

Okay, I think the kids will probably come down.

So if they do, that's fine.

Grab a hold of your kids and you can you can bring them.

Um but can I pray over you?

Gotta pray today that we would receive your forgiveness.

Um, those who are here who need healing, gotta pray for the healing power of God to come and fill their bodies and their minds.

And I pray, God, that today we would enter into a new covenant with you.

Not based on how good we are, but how good you are.

So we thank you for that.

We receive it by faith.

We're trusting in you today, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So you're gonna just want to come forwards first.

You guys come and then we'll we'll come around, okay?

Just come in the front.

This way, yeah, this way, this way.

Yeah.

Yeah, and then these guys come on around.

Don't be shy, come on.

You just take him in whenever you're ready, okay?

You don't need to wait for everyone.

If you would like some prayer, we'll be down here, down the front, if you would like to be prayed for, okay?

Sometimes it's great to have someone pray with you.

Um, so over where near Tim, where Tim is here, um, you're very welcome to come get prayer.

Otherwise, have an amazing week.

God bless you.

Go be a blessing to the world.

Um, take the forgiveness of God and hold it.

Um, God is with you.

Go with God.

Be blessed.

Having a great week, everyone.

See you back here next week.