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3 Epidemics - Are You Vacinated? · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to a minute with you today.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Try not to go quite as long as I did last week, but um wanted to talk to you about uh the stuff we've been getting into.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I uh teased you a little bit in the uh uh verbal uh intro about finding a vaccination for three epidemics raging through the church.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're all kind of thinking about uh, you know, epidemics, pandemics, and all that because of all that's going on.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought I'd play with that in this sense of emotional epidemics.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, just being a pastor, being around people, watching people.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've thought about this kind of stuff for a long time.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember one time coming up with a list of these three epidemics, and epidemics, you know, just a collection of symptoms that describe a disease.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like I came up with these three epidemics that helped crystallize where we need to focus and where we need to apply our effort in becoming uh as healthy as possible.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, these last couple of weeks we've been talking about direct control, indirect control, no control, and how that affects our posture in relationships.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Direct control is responsibility, indirect control, we have the opportunity to influence an outcome, not necessarily control it or determine the outcome, but influence it.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then no control is uh where we need to find somebody bigger than ourself that we can trust with um outcomes that are important to us, but that we don't have direct or indirect control over, or maybe very little indirect control.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are the three epidemics?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: The three epidemics, I believe, raging through the church, raging through our surrounding culture.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in other words, three epidemics that all of us need to be aware of, learn to recognize, and also maybe figure out why our culture is so susceptible to them.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: The first one, the first epidemic is heart disease, an epidemic of heart disease.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 13, 12 says this uh hope deferred, hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So when I say there's an epidemic of heart disease, obviously in our culture there is an epidemic of heart disease physically, but that's not what I'm talking about.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about emotionally.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's an epidemic of heart disease.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean is hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: When we continually are prop promised something real or perceived, we have an expectation of something from someone from a situation, and we're constantly or consistently, let's say, disappointed, what happens is our heart gets sick.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by that?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one of the things it does is it makes us stop hoping.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it you know, if you think of hope as an anticipation of an expected good, hope is an anticipation of an expected good.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hope deferred, in other words, you're anticipating something, it doesn't happen, and it makes your heart sick.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: One of the ways it makes your heart sick is it makes it if you think of ladder as I mean hope as a ladder, you're climbing and you're getting excited as you climb.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And hope deferred is you climb up the ladder and then you get knocked off.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: You climb up the ladder, then you get knocked off.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hope deferred makes the heart sick, means guess what?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: You quit climbing the ladder and you quit wanting things, you quit expecting things, you quit going after things.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's uh, I think it's an epidemic in our church, churches, in our culture.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I've said this before.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think by the time we're adults, most of us are wanter is broken.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by that?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Our ability to really say, I want this to happen, and I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna go after it.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: What we kind of do is, yeah, you know, it'd be nice if that happened.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: But from our heart, we're afraid to want it because hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one epidemic I believe is raging through the church.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: The second one is what I would call an epidemic of renegade emotions.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Renegade emotions.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by that?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I just believe we have a culture and uh in the church, outside of the church and the world around us, we're we're we just we just think it's okay to just let our emotions go crazy.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: We can we can get angry without thinking it's unusual, we can throw tantrums, we can we can go up, we can go down, we can go sideways, and we act like it's okay that we have no control over our emotions.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I I mentioned to you that kind of what I'm sharing is little bits and pieces out of the teaching that I've done over the years on boundaries.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh here's the thing about it, guys.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um God has given you the responsibility to manage your emotions.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: If He's given you the responsibility, remember what comes with it, the authority and power.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So God has given you everything you need to the responsibility, the authority, and the power to manage your emotions.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um now, is it harder for some than others?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's there can be physiological things, there can be brain chemistry things with depression and anxiety and things of that sort.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: There can be there can be uh early life things, there can be you grew up in a family that anger was the emotion of choice.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you could grow up in a family that was very flat affect, you call it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh the issue of renegade emotions is a challenge for you.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: But my point is this, guys, you can't you can't abdicate responsibility because when you give away responsibility, whether you mean to or not, you're giving away the authority and power to achieve the result that maybe you're more responsible for than you think.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that leads into the third epidemic.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the third epidemic is an epidemic of victimhood or a victim mindset.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in the church and in the culture around us, there's there's an epidemic of people thinking through the filter of a victim.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, just to give you an example of what I mean, first of all, let's settle something.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Are there times when we are a victim?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Are there times when we are hurt by, assaulted by, and I don't mean just with a pointing of a gun, but I mean with words, etc., etc.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Are we hurt by other people?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: But victimization is situational.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, in this situation, with this particular series sequence of events, I was a victim.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean my identity, my resources are limited to victimization.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: The antidote to victimization is stewardship.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: The antidote is taking, remember, it all starts with responsibility.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Always starts with responsibility, then it goes to authority and power.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: The antidote to victimization is taking, receiving, accepting responsibility for the things God expects me to be responsible for.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a little another way to look at the victim mindset.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: A victim mindset is always thinking something like this.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they keep doing that to me?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they keep doing that to me?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing, guys, choice is power.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you make a victim always perceives the source of their problem is outside of themselves.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: The source of their problem is outside of themselves.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if the source of my problem is outside of myself, I can't do anything about it.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not true in 98% of the cases.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Again, somebody's holding a gun to your ribs and wants your purse, you are a victim.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: But in a relationship, well, why did why do they why do they keep doing that to me?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they keep making me feel bad about myself?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they this?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they that?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal, guys.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: The source of your problem is not them.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: The source of your problem is you.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um now, it's a little bit too complicated to settle here in the we're already a minute over, but here's the thing.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you'll start taking responsibility, for instance, let's say you have a person in your life that is kind of hurtful.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I can't I can't control what they do.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, you cannot.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can influence what they do, maybe, but you can't control it.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So what can you do?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can create distance between you and them.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: You if it's bad enough, you can get them out of your life.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say it isn't someone you can do that with.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can work internally to change the way what they do affects you.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like I like to say it this way: change yourself so that their games no no longer work on you.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, easy, not always.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: But if you start with a victim mindset, a victim filter through which you view relationships in life, you're you're not even in the race.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, no, it's not always easy to keep people from hurting you as deeply as they have in the past.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: But if you give up the responsibility to even try Yeah, I you know, gosh, I hate to say it this way, but I hope you like the way life's working out because it's not going to change.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Remember insanity, doing the same thing, same way, expecting different results?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you want the relationships you're in to change, victimhood would be, well, if he would stop this, if she would stop that, if he would do more of this, if she would do more of that.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's victim thinking because the source of change, the source of the solution, therefore the source of your problem is outside of yourself.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of saying, you know what, why don't I change?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I change what I expect from them?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I change where I look to to get the need that I'm looking to them to meet?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking to them to meet a need.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: What if I change how I go about getting that need met that doesn't involve them?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, Lord willing as the days and weeks go by, we'll talk more about this kind of stuff.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Three epidemics raging through the church.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: An epidemic of heart disease, an epidemic of renegade emotions, and an epidemic of victim mindset or victimization, victimhood.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: They all will cripple you, all three of those will cripple you and make it very difficult for you to grab life the way God wants you to and steer it, drive it, pedal it, walk it, run it toward what God wants for you.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one quick kind of promo on Thursdays at noon.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you can catch it on the Facebook page, you can catch it on YouTube, you can catch it on our podcast.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I do we do this talk, and right now we're talking our way through a book called Playing God by Andy Crouch.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: The subtitle is Redeeming the Gift of Power.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: The book is so good.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not an easy read, not a fun read.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to, just check out our conversation each week.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I just want you to know that it's there and it shows on the same page this does, Facebook.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: But um just talking about power and uh it's the implications it has for us personally and for us as a culture and for us as believers in our responsibility to represent, represent God to the surrounding community.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, love you guys, and uh I so enjoy you guys hanging in there with me.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Bless you and uh share this stuff with other people, you know, through your the way you can do that, you probably know more about it than I do.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: But um let's just see if we can help some folks, starting with ourselves and each other.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right, love you guys.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.