Latest / Mental Health and the Mission of the Church / Shades of Grace

Transcript

Shades of Grace · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, New Life Church in Kalamazoo.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Really looking forward to getting up there sometime.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Been getting to know your pastor, Pastor Dan and his wife Kelsey.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know what they've told you about me, but I'm a pastor, but I'm also a counselor, and I work with leaders.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And don't tell anybody, but uh Dan and Kelsey are some of the most jacked up, messed up, unhealthy leaders I've ever worked with in my life.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm actually kidding.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kidding about that.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're awesome people, and uh I am really, really enjoying helping them, but I'm enjoying the friendship that we're building at the same time.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: All right, why is this strange guy wearing sunglasses?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the deal.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to talk to you today about how you see.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: How you see, how you see God, how you see yourself, how you see others.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh let me ask you a question.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you agree that Jesus kind of saw things differently than we do?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus related to people differently than we do, Jesus reacted to people differently than we do.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um we're gonna talk around that today, and I hope by the time it's done, you're gonna have a new pair of glasses.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I call them shades of grace.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Shades of grace, not like window shades, but eyeglasses, shades of grace.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna talk about how to fit you with a pair of glasses that'll help you change the way you see people and relate to people.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh hopefully it's gonna be a little bit of fun, and hopefully it's really gonna be helpful.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now I can actually see you, see not see you, but I can actually see, by the way.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: All right, in John chapter 8, they brought a woman to Jesus who was caught.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: John chapter 8, they she was caught in the act of adultery.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, several things should stick out to us from a story like that.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fairly confident that adultery requires two people to be present and engaged in the activity.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, right away, we're a little bit thrown by the fact that only one person was brought to them.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um, obviously there's a lot to that, not what we're gonna focus on.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to imagine that you're a church and there's whether it's a hundred people there or a thousand people there, you're brought to the front of the sanctuary, right at the pulpit, right at the stage, and a group of people that are kind of upset with you begin to read off all of your flaws, all of your sins, all of your shortcomings.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's basically what happened.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: This woman was caught in the act of adultery.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: She was brought to the feet of Jesus.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: A bunch of men around her had stones, and they said, Jesus, she was caught in adultery.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know what how this should be handled.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So this group of people at your church, they've pulled you up front and they've read off your list, and they've said this.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know what should happen.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know what judgment this deserves, right?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's so cool.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I love the Bible.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love that I grew up, it sounds a little weird, but I love that I didn't grow up in church.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we did not go to church.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean very much, we did not go to church.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But what I love about that is all the stories, all the Bible is so fresh to me.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, obviously now 44 years later, it's not maybe that fresh, although I think it has stayed fresh, but it was pretty fresh to me.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I would read a story like this, and here's what I think to myself This book, the Bible, is God's letter to us saying, this is what I'm like.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I'm really like.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, the Bible says often, Jesus was the exact representation of the Father.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: It says he was the visible expression of the invisible God.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what do you mean, dude?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: What are you, why are you getting into all this?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I watch Jesus in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what I see is this is how God feels about this topic, situation, person.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, back to our story.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: They brought this woman caught in the act of adultery, threw her at Jesus' feet, and they said, She deserves to be stoned.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is so cool.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: He is so cool.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what he does is he kneels and he writes in the sand.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we don't know the dynamics.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, if you ever talked to a child and you knelt down to get on their level, I think Jesus was trying to identify with her.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think he was trying to say, hey, I'm with you.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And who knows if what he wrote in the sand, I would really like to know, maybe we will one day, but I'd really like to know, what if he wrote her name where she could see it?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: What if what if he said, what if he listed their names and their sins?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what he did.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: He stands back up, and here's what he says.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: You who are without sin, cast the first stone.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, if if you think you're in a superior place morally, ethically, in your holiness and walk, then you deserve it.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: You've earned it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and throw a stone.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that scripture says in John chapter 8 that from the oldest to the youngest, they dropped their stones and they walked away.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I'm trying to say to you is this Jesus, fancy word we use in counseling, is reframe.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus loved to reframe issues.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: He loved to make us look at them.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: He loved to just like pow our perspective and make us look at things differently.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, like I said a minute ago, Jesus had a different pair of glasses.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: He had shades of grace.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I want to talk to you about today is how you can experience for yourself an ongoing journey of growth and change.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Growth and change.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to, I want to help maybe nudge your church in a direction that helps you as a church create an environment that invites broken-hurting, imperfect people.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Know any of those?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it invites them to a journey of growth and change.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So to do that, we're gonna look at a couple of different things, but let me take you to another one of my favorite scriptures.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's Matthew 22.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I just think this is an awesomely cool way that God gives us a glimpse of what he's really like.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they come to Jesus in Matthew chapter 22 and they say to him, uh, what's the greatest commandment?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 22, 34 to 40.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Jesus, what's the greatest commandment?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in my mind, this is how I hear it.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: What's the hottest issue, the biggest issue, the most important issue on the heart of God?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um so Jesus, I think, without any real deep thought, because it was, he knew it, he knew the answer.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: In a word, what would you say?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: In a word, he said, love.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: What's the number one greatest commandment above all the others?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe without taking a breath, he said, and love your neighbor as yourself.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And love your neighbor as yourself.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love that this is again, Jesus was God in the flesh, the invisible God made visible.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he and this is his answer to what's the biggest issue on the heart of God.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, a while back, just to make a point here, a while back there was a pretty large church up in Chicago that did a study, and they studied all kinds of socioeconomic levels, and they wanted to, they wanted to figure out why we are not building disciples as well as we could and should.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: What's broken in our system?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so they spent a lot of money and they they eventually wrote a book.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was called uh, I don't remember, but uh I didn't really, I don't really read those kind of books typically, but I felt like the Holy Spirit nudged me to read it and uh didn't know why.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I read I read it, and when I hit, I can't remember now if it's page 74 or 76, but it was somewhere in there.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: This the book was called Reveal.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they had like, this is our conclusion, why our discipling is off track and not working as well as it could.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what they said they based it on Matthew 22, 34 through 40, and here's what they said we're making it too complicated.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our product, if you will, the disciples we're trying to make should be good at two things.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Two things.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what they concluded: love God, love others.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, love your neighbor as yourself.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And their conclusion was love God, love others.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, forgive me for being so arrogant to think I'm smarter than them, but here's my problem.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: That isn't what the Bible said.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't what the Bible said.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Love your neighbor, your wife, your children, your friends, your co-workers, the lost world around you.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Love your neighbor.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: How?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: As you love yourself.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've come to conclude something in 44 years walking with God, 40 of those years in ministry, counseling, pastoring, I've come to conclude this that it's really, really hard to love other people until you learn to love the hardest person you're ever going to have to learn to love.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know who's the hardest person you're ever going to have to learn to love?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: The one sitting in your chair.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: The one you look at in the mirror every day, the one you know the most about, and you know the darkness that's in their soul, you know the motives of their heart, you know the petty reasons they do some of what they do.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really, really hard for you to love them.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the good news.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you can learn to love yourself, everything changes.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to me, man.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: When you learn to love yourself, everybody else is easier.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I'm gonna do today.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna talk to you about how to create, how to design, how to wear shades of grace, how to see God, yourself, and others differently, maybe than you've ever seen them before.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna talk to you about something, but here's what I'm asking you today.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I'm gonna say is about how to see people, how to look at them, the filters, the grace filter that you look at them through.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I'm asking you today: apply it to yourself first.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Apply it to yourself first.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've come to believe this.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself, I believe that's one scripture we all do automatically.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: We love other people the way we've learned to love ourselves.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean by that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's a verse in the Bible that says, freely you've received, freely give.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's just say you were blessed to be born into a family where love just worked.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: It it it flowed freely both directions.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So freely you receive, probably you're gonna be pretty good at giving love.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's play with that a little bit.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: With difficulty you receive.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: If I receive love with difficulty, I'm gonna have difficulty giving it.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Through terms and conditions, I receive, through costs and consequences I receive, through judgment and performance, I receive love.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: But guess what?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I'm gonna give it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give love through consequences and conditions and performance.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, how I've learned to receive love is gonna have a lot to do with how I give love, how easy it is, how natural it is, how how grace-filled and non-judgmental it is.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, we're gonna talk about here here's a guy, just to kind of put this in context, who you're listening to today.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to a guy who's 35 years old and who just lied to you, by the way, about his age, but you're listening to a guy who's been in ministry 40 years, plus, give or take, most of that time as a pastor and a counselor.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning, I've spent, I tallied it up one time.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've probably spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 or so, 13,000 hours working with individuals, marriages, families, now leaders, their teams, their families, and their organization, helping them figure out how to break the destructive cycles and learn how to live in a healthier, more consistently victorious way.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess what I'm trying to say is, and forgive me for saying this, you might want to pay attention because here's what I'm gonna talk about.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: How do we become, how do we become the way that we are?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's what I believe.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: You ever met somebody that you didn't like?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you met them and almost immediately your gut reaction was, uh, we're just we're just not gonna, we're not gonna be friends.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that happens, it's happened to me many times.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And one time I was ministering at a particular church and had just gotten in the night before my work really started, and we went out to dinner with the pastor and his wife.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, we weren't, honestly, we weren't 10, 15 minutes into the dinner, and I was just like, oh gosh, this is gonna be tricky.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was it was the spouse, and I just just there was an air about her, a roughness, a gruffness, uh, and I was just like, gosh, this is gonna be a tough weekend.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: But what I was there to do was counsel the staff and then speak at the church.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the next morning I met with the staff, and of course, one of them was the pastor and his wife, and um, as she began to tell her story, we always talk about your childhood and that kind of thing, and as she began to tell her story, I was so ashamed of myself for judging her quickly the night before.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: You ever met someone and you didn't like them, and then later you heard their story and your view of them changed.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what happened.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I'm talking about today.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you about how we become the way we are, and here's what I'm after.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to raise the grace level.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want to raise John chapter 1, verse 14 says that Jesus was full of grace and truth.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Grace and truth, grace and truth.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal: Grace draws you, truth changes you, grace makes you feel accepted, truth helps you function better, you might say.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to raise the grace level in my life, your life, your church's life, and then out into the community.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And how we do that, I believe part of how we do that is we slow down and give thought to how did that woman caught in adultery become that woman?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: How did she become that woman?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, she probably had great parents and men that treated her with respect and honor.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: She probably just woke up one day and said, I think I'll just be a whatever.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's what happened.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: How do we become how did you become the person that you are today with the unique challenges you have, the unique uh strengths you have, weaknesses you have, flaws that you have, things that you're ashamed of about yourself.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: How did you become this person?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if there's anybody in your midst that is a counselor or professional in this this area, you're gonna probably be like, dude, you can't boil down the complexity of human development to the three things.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you three things.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can't boil it down to three things.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna do that anyways.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've been at this a long time, and I believe these three things cover, I know I did two, I did three into that, these three things cover lots of territory.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of territory.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: All right, how do we become the way that we are?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you would agree with this statement?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: In childhood, the outside shapes the inside.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: In childhood, the outside shapes the inside.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: In adulthood, the inside shapes the outside.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what we're gonna be talking about.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: How do we become the way that we are?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm one of those counselor types that believes this.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: 80 to 90% of what you deal with in your adult life, 80 to 90% of what you deal with in your adult life goes back to your childhood.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I I make no apologies, and if you want to fuss with me about it, come on, come on.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: You you might sharpen me and teach me something I missed, and I would love that.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, three key factors in how we become the way that we are.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, and these are gonna sound a little strange.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna put them, you know, hopefully you can get the notes, or I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll send a set of notes if you want them.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, three key factors.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, how do we become the way that we are?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: How can we learn to see ourselves, God, and others through a filter of grace?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: All right, number one, genetic and multi-generational predisposition.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of weird for a Sunday morning, dude.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: All right, genetic, we we get that.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Multi-generational, that means from from grandparents to parents to to you, from you to your kids, and from them to their kids.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: So this multi-generational chain.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's a verse in Deuteronomy, it's actually in a couple of different places, but in Deuteronomy 5.9, it says this this the iniquity of a father is visited on the third and fourth generation.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a couple of key thoughts.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say the sin of a father.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us quote it that way.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's incorrect.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I making an issue of that?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's really, really important.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sin is the act itself.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Iniquity, the word literally means to be bent or crooked.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: You could look at it this way: what's transmitted from one generation to the next is not the acts of sin, but to be bent, leaning toward that same sin.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you'd agree that alcoholism seems to run in families?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you'd agree that anger can run it?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you depression?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, oh well, are you calling all those things sin?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not calling them sin, I'm calling them traits, challenges, um behavior patterns that are passed genetically from one generation to the next.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the first thing you've got to consider when you look at a person, including the one you see in the mirror every day, and ask the question, how did I become the way that I am?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's this thing that I use called a gram.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And there'll be one that you'll see here in a second as I'm talking.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: A genogram is what, you know, it's I I call it a spiritual family tree.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and what it is, is it it like at the bottom you put the family that you're counseling, the the man, his wife, whatever, kids, and then you go up the sides and you talk about the families that each of them came from.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you can, you want to get about three layers, so you get up to the you know the families their parents came from.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what you do is you start discussing, well, what how would you describe how would you describe your dad?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he was he was, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: One time I was doing this, uh, one of the first times I ever did it.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: People who became dear, dear friends to me, um, and he was an alcoholic.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And a good guy, you know, but he's an alcoholic.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so one of the first things we did in counseling was we did a geneogram, and we did this, you know, we did it on a like a uh marker board that they could see, and we built this genogram with their name, his name was Howard, and I have permission to say that by the way.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's actually gone on to be with the Lord, but um so as we went to his parents and then up to his parents' parents and her side also.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think we saw all up his side of the genogram?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Alcohol.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, does that mean, oh, no big deal, dude?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, but I'll never forget when we were doing that geneogram.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget this funny look came on his face.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Howard, what's uh what's up, man?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he looked at that that flow generationally from generations before him to him, and here's what he said.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: You mean I didn't do this to myself?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's the deal, guys.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Does he bear responsibility for some of the choices he made, which we're gonna talk about in a minute?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: But how many of you know he had he had a tendency toward, a predisposition toward alcoholism that I didn't have?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you might not have.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I need to be a little slower to judge him, right?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask y'all a question.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you got to pick your family?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you remember being disembodied spirits floating in the air?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And God came to you and said, Chipper, would you go down and be Leroy and Emily's number six of seven kids and live at you know, Buffalo, New York?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And how many of you remember that?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you remember filling out a preference sheet?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Any of you remember your floating spirit?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and you you got this request form, you know.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want a dad who's warm and friendly, he's challenging but kind, he's he's available, accessible.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, by the way, he's got lots of money.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want a mom who's warm and kind.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And anybody remember filling that out?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So what am I saying to you?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't get to pick the family you were born into.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you know what?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot about you and the challenges you face, the struggles you endure that are not your fault, that you're not responsible for.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me be quick to say something.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: You may not be responsible for the way that you are in some ways, but you are responsible for changing the way that you are.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: But let's stay with the grace for now.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the bottom line is, guys, one of the things, how we become the way we are, is genetic and multi-generational predisposition.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Really, really important.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: All right, number two is what I call early life imprints.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Early life imprints, early life imprints.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Early life imprints are just how we learn everything.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's how we learn everything, how we process fear, how we process intimacy, love, respect, self-confidence, risk taking.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: We have imprints in our soul.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Here's an imprint: fact, feeling, paired, stored.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a definition of an imprint.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: An imprint is an experience paired with an emotion, and that creates an imprint.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: An experience paired with an emotion creates an imprint.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Little two-year-old Johnny standing by the door.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Mommy just told him that dad's on his way home.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Johnny's so excited to see dad.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Dad comes in the door, Johnny lifts his hands for dad to pick him up.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Dad's had a bad day, brushes Johnny off, goes straight to his uh recliner, and what does he reach for?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody always gets it right.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: The remote control for the TV, and he just disappears.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you know little Johnny's gonna only do that so many times before he stops doing it?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what happened?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Experience, emotion, imprint.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, oh, one time and the kid scarred for life?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't mean that at all.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal: we form imprints in every area of our being.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: We form imprints about ourselves, about God, about love, how it works.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of it happens really, really early in life.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is we learn them early in life, and then later in life they operate automatically and subconsciously.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, we're not consciously aware of our imprints.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's some scary news.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Most of our imprints, research indicates, are in place by guess what age?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Most of our imprints are stored in our soul by seven.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Seven years old.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, can they be changed?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is that process instant and automatic?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it can be done.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's part of why I love what I get to do.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: But make no mistake about it, how do we become the way that we are?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Genetic multi-generational predispositions.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, early life imprints.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, our life choices.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Our life choices.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do we become the way that we are?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: The families we're born into create some genetic realities.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: The early life experiences we have in that family draw out, amplify, build those genetic things.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: But then at some point we begin to make choices.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Does the child of an alcoholic have to be an alcoholic?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is it automatic?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, absolutely not.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: What it does is it increases, forgive me, it increases the likelihood or the struggle against that you're going to face that's going to be different from mine.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: But here's a way to think about it.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Your choices awaken what's already there.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Your choices awaken the potential that was put in you through genetics and multigeneral rational predecession.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: The tendencies or strategies that were put in you through early life choices.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a cool phrase.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's a long one, but it's a cool one.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: What we live, we learn.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: What we learn, we practice.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: What we practice, we become.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read it again.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: What we live, we learn.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: What we learn, we practice.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: What we practice, we become.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's a really cool verse in Romans chapter 6, verse 16.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 6, 16.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in different translations, of course, it's worded slightly differently, but in essence, it says this you're a slave of whomever you obey.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're a slave of whomever you obey.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I've drawn.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a principle or a thought that I've drawn from that.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you say yes to gets stronger.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you say no to gets weaker.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what am I trying to say?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: You and I have three big things that come into effect for us to become the way that we are.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: The most powerful thing you and I have at our disposal is choice.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I believe this.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a weird way to say it, but I believe this.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Two words that determine your destiny are yes and no.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: What you say yes to, what you say no to.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's the thing, guys.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't boil down what I've said today to that.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, you just you're just saying yes to the wrong things.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's the third part of three steps.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm really trying to say to you is how do you how do you fashion and wear shades of grace?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: By learning to recognize that the process that made me who and what we are, the process that created the challenges I deal with, two-thirds of it, or this is a grossly oversimplified way to say it, but two-thirds of how I became the way I am were beyond my control.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And now with the help of God, with the help of the loving people He puts around me, with using scripture and other learnings, I can make choices saying yes and no, that weaken the things that I know need to change and strengthen the things that I know need to become bigger in my life.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'm trying to say to you is this, man.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: God loves you right now just the way you are.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: He loves you just the way you are.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's grace.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: But John 1.14 says Jesus was full of grace and truth.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Grace says, I love you just the way you are.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Truth says, but I love you too much to leave you the way you are.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: My greatest delight is helping you feel good about the fact that you're loved right now, all you're ever going to be.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: But following right behind that, my greatest delight is for you to realize that I, you know, a lot of what made me the way I am was not my choosing.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I can make choices now that bring my life into a place it's never been before.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so excited about you learning to do that.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want to end with.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want to end with giving you the opportunity to begin.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing: every journey has a beginning.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And your journey with God has a beginning.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the most important moments in that beginning is when you accept the reality of Jesus.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: He who knew no sin became sin, that I slash we might be made the righteousness of Christ.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: As many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to pray with you.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening, and you know, I don't know that I've ever really settled that I'm a sinner.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can't save myself.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus died in my place, took on himself what I deserve, so I could take on myself what he deserves.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let's all pray this prayer together.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've prayed this prayer for the first time today, go talk to somebody that's in leadership in the church and let them know so they can help you on this journey.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: So let's pray this together.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, I know that I'm a sinner, and I know I can't save myself.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, thank you that you died in my place.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: You forgive me of all my sins, and you want to live your life through me.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: I accept your forgiveness.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: I accept your life in me, and I look forward to growing in my knowledge of your love and your purpose for me.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys, hope to see you soon.