Mean People and What to Do About Them | Part One

[Music] [Applause] [Music] good morning everybody thanks bill that's so helpful to have people awake and ready to go uh last week we were outside it's a little cooler in here so i prefer this i think i don't know about you yes some of you are not in your heads as well uh anyway if you are a west goer we'll have that back and better than ever august 8th but welcome to the east welcome online if you're joining us uh so over the weeks you've heard us every week we get up here and we've got lots of websites on the screens we tell you go here go there and you're carrying journals you've got siri recording all these dates and information so we thought you know what we're gonna simplify that for you so there's really only one thing you need to remember one place you need to go and that's northpoint.org top three northwind.org top three is a place where we will do all the work for you we will find the top three things you need to know each week going on here at north point or things you just need to be aware of and we're gonna put them on this landing page if you go to northpointe.org top three you will see it each and every week so that's all you got to remember all you got to write down for this week and if you're watching online and it's your first time with us after the message you can go to that same page and scroll down click on new and we will get you connected my name is justin as i said earlier i get to serve here as the high school director which is inside out and i've asked you parents of high schoolers the last couple weeks maybe i've begged you to send your students to daytona sign your student up for camp and so many of you have so i first want to say thank you but also i came to ask one more thing of all of you whether you have a high schooler or not i've asked all of you this morning our church family here to do one thing for me and one thing on behalf of our high school students as you came in you probably saw a display with all of these names on it they look like that well what these are the first name and last initial of every single student that we have registered to go for daytona this year and so as a church family i would love it on your way out if you would grab one two three half a dozen names and put them on your fridge or put them somewhere your family's gonna see it because i would love for the next two weeks for us as a church to pray for these students by name that god would encounter them at camp that they would have a significant encounter that would grow or initiate their faith in jesus this year so i would love it if you would support us and come alongside us and pray for all these students by name and i'll come back in a couple weeks when camp is over and let you know how we can celebrate together about what god did at camp this year but thank you for those of you who registered thank you in advance for all of you who are going to support us in prayer and we're going to sing in a second this first song we're going to sing i think is especially appropriate because it does highlight a prayer that i find myself praying often in the chorus it says so when i fight i fight on my knees with my hands lifted high god the battle belongs to you and sometimes it can be weird to sing things like i'm fighting in this battle on my knees what does that mean it simply is a prayer that battle that we're singing about maybe you've experienced it before for me sometimes it's in the form of relationships or finances maybe for you it's career or family dynamic and you get to that place where you just don't know what else to do you don't know who to turn to how do i fight a battle when there's another person on the other side not willing to throw in their two cents and it's those moments that this song says we throw up our hands on our knees as a form of surrender you know it shifts the perspective and say god i can't do it anymore i'm depending on you and so if that's you i would just encourage you to sing this out as a way to kind of believe god for it this morning that he is here and he's willing to fight those battles on your behalf and if you're not there yet in your faith journey i would just love you to read these words that we're going to put on the screen because it is true that in those hard moments we do serve a god who we can surrender our life to and he will come fight our battles so if you would please stand up as we are led and singing by riley and andy and april and lauren thanks for being here good morning cook warden we're so thankful you're here with us we're gonna sing together let's try it like this when all i see is the mountain you see the mountains [Music] me [Music] come on try this with us this morning [Music] and if you are for me you can be against me before jesus there's nothing [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] in [Music] [Music] [Music] we'll go before [Music] [Applause] with my hands lifted high oh [Music] [Music] i was lost but he brought me [Music] [Applause] [Music] is his good news [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] there's a place for me [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] yes [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Music] there's a place there's a place for me i'm a child of god if your trauma come to jesus and find your peace if you're run down come to jesus and find your strength he is [Music] [Music] broken bearing the burdens all that you're meeting here [Music] if you're watching in the darkness come to jesus and find your way if you are freedom and need forgiveness just come to jesus and find his grace [Music] is [Music] prince of peace author and maker of everything defender deliverer king of kings he is he is helper and healer forevermore savior and shelter through every storm my refuge redeemer and lord of lords he is [Music] [Music] all that you need god we thank you for your presence in this place and father we thank you for meeting us lord right in our need and showing us hope [Music] and lord it's amazing to know that in you we have freedom there's rest for the rearing and lord above all you're everything that we need father i pray for each and every single person that's here today for those that are streaming online i just ask lord that you fill their hearts with your grace your mercy your peace and you just continue lord jesus to strengthen their faith and their walk in you and it's in your holy and matchless name that we pray and we all say amen and amen thank you guys so much for singing with us you may be seated [Music] hmm [Music] so today is um part one of a two-part series entitled mean people and what to do about them mean people and what to do about them i i thought about entitling this series bad people and what to do about them but you know we hesitate to call anybody bad we say things like this like you know he's he's really not he's really not a bad person and that's what we say he's really not a bad person he just he just does bad things like a lot which i think that's what it means to be a bad person but so we're not going to do a bad person we're going to do mean person we're going to stick with mean people mean people and specifically what should we do about the mean people in our lives and by mean i mean mean these are the unpleasant people these are the deceptive people these are the people that control us with time or money or with our children uh these are the users they're just they're just unkind it may be that person that when you see them coming you just don't want to interact with them because well they're just there's just no other way to say it they're just mean and to be clear this isn't to say that we're not often mean i mean all of us have been mean at some point in fact there's somebody maybe who's going to see or hear this message and unfortunately we're going to come to mind but generally what we talk about when we're together is how to live a life in such a way and to live our lives in such a way that we're not the mean people so we're not discounting the fact that from time to time we can be mean and certainly have the potential um to be perhaps as mean as the meanest person we've ever met but this these two messages are going to focus on how to respond to and how to react to the mean people in our lives now the reason this is so important um is this is if if you don't have a plan and if i don't have a plan um if we're not prepared and honestly as we're going to see if we're not somewhat proactive here's what happens and we we've all experienced this the mean people the mean people in our lives ultimately they gain a measure of control over our lives and before we know it we're actually acting like they do and it feels in the moment as if we have no choice in fact if somebody were to hear your story or when you tell your story and you talk about how you've reacted to or responded to the person that you know is mean to you um the person that hears your story is like well who could blame you it's almost like it's like you have no choice and the reason it feels like we have no choice is this that mean people and we don't think in these terms when we're in the relationship but mean people without even meaning to they just keep us off balance we're just always off balance we don't know where what we're walking into we don't know how to respond they kind of lean left and we kind of lean right because when we're off balance what happens we're forced to compensate this is why in these relationships you feel like you're not even yourself in fact somebody may have said to you you know when you're around him when you're around her when you're together i feel like i feel like you're not even yourself why because well when we're around these kinds of people we are forced to compensate if somebody walks up and pushes you off balance everything in you would you compensate to regain your balance but the problem with a mean person is it is impossible it is virtually impossible to maintain and keep your balance i'll give you a quick illustration um that actually is a long illustration i'm going to try to keep short when my mom who died when she was 82 when my mom was in her late 30s she met a young woman in her late 20s that she helped out and they became lifelong friends her name was alice and alice actually used to stay with me with my sister and me when my parents would go out of town so i've known alice basically my whole life so then when my mom was in her 70s and basically she couldn't drive anymore and she really had needed some some help at home alice would actually drive 45 minutes from her home now alice is in her late 60s she would drive from her home 45 minutes to my mom's home every single week to go through my mom's mail pay my mom's bills balance my mom's checkbook and just answer any questions and just spend time with my mom which i was so grateful for so my mom invested in her now she's investing in my mom and again it took so much pressure off of me so extraordinarily grateful so as my mom um near the end of her life and as she was you know less and less able to take care of herself um alice began to lose her sight and before long she couldn't drive any longer and she was basically a shut-in in her own home and then sandra my wife began doing for alice what alice had done for my mom she would go over drive over every single week go through the mail pay the bills balance the checkbook and just answer any questions that she had and so she was kind of giving back based on what you know alice had so graciously done for my mom so as time goes by it becomes clear to us that alice can't stay in her house any longer because technically she was living alone we'll come back to that in just a minute and so sandra convinced alice that she needed to move to assisted living now if anyone here has ever moved a parent or a spouse's parent to assisted living it is so complicated but it's even more complicated we're trying to move somebody who is not a family member so sandra got an attorney she became alice's official legal power of attorney and then she got another friend of alice's to become alice's um uh physical or medical power of attorney so there's kind of team alice but because alice had never married she had no kids um she'd out pretty much outlived almost all of her friends and certainly her her parents and her her brother and sister and so um she's alone in the world and so you know we're going to take care of alice so um about nine months before the process began to get her into assisted lives the goal was get her an assisted living in fact sandra found a place two miles from our house because we're committed to alice for the rest of her life um she found this place and alice could almost afford it based with her pension and with her social security but there was going to be a gap so the goal is get her out clean out her house sell her stuff sell the house she had a little bit of equity put the money in the bank and you know we'll just go from there so that's that's the plan very complicated especially when you're not related to the person well anyway about eight or nine months before that process began um an old friend of alice's showed up at her front door a gentleman in his late 60s keeping all this straight and he said alice i'm destitute i don't have a place to live i've been living in my car um it's getting cold would it be okay if i moved in with you for just a few months now alice had been warned and later we were warned that this guy's name is roger that if you let roger move in you're going to have a difficult time getting roger to move out she had been told that and she'd known him for a while and somebody told us that when we heard about roger moving in but she allowed him to move into one of her spirit bedrooms and actually honestly he was pretty helpful because he could drive and he could take her to her doctor's visits um he would bring us the mail sometimes he seemed like the nicest guy and i couldn't imagine this was going to be a problem besides he knew we're going to sell her house and so if we sell her house you'll probably have to move out by that point right so i felt like there was kind of a built-in deadline this wouldn't be a problem so sure enough um he was pretty helpful um we did our sandra did i should say i wouldn't say a state sale it was more garage sale than a state sale you know what i mean there wasn't you know there wasn't a whole lot to sell but we had an estate sale or a garage sale roger was actually helpful he actually even bought some of her stuff to put in his storage unit that he said he had which was great now he wasn't paying any rent wasn't paid any bills wasn't buying any groceries he was i mean there was no cash outlet he was living for free for all these months and so we finally have get we get alice moved to this assisted living place close to us that was you know an event we get the house cleaned out we do this big garage sale sander put signs out that the house is going to go for sale and you know the real estate market right now is so high so she starts getting calls and now she's got to show the house but now the house is completely empty i mean she sold everything and then threw everything else away and just a mammoth you know task if you've ever done that for someone and so sandra is you know riding point on this whole process and then we got to show the house but the problem is there's you know come see this house it's completely empty except oh yeah don't go in that bedroom there's an air mattress with some clothes in the closet and a computer on the floor you know don't mind the guy camping out in the house so you know it's going to be kind of hard to show this house right well so she started showing the house and so we're like roger okay thank you you got to go and he just ignores us so um sandra gives him a deadline he gives him three weeks by this day he agreed that hey on that monday i'll be gone monday comes monday goes he's still there and it becomes apparent he's not moving out in fact um because alice isn't living in the house right now um sandra shut off all the you know unnecessary utilities including the television service and she gets a bill from the television provider she calls says no i canceled that and she and the person on the other line said well somebody called and had it turned back on and roger had called the television provider and had the television service turned back on and sandra left the internet on because he said he needed internet so this begins to escalate and escalate and escalate so one night um and it becomes it's all we're thinking about and talking about every day i come home i'm like have you heard from roger if you talk to rogers roger moved out and we've got all these other people that are like you know we got to get roger out but it's it's kind of resting on us so we're sitting on the couch late one afternoon um sandra calls roger i said put it on you know on speakerphone and of course i'm trying not to get involved because sandra throughout the process and said andy you cannot get involved because i wanted to get involved and i only had one tool you know i want to use my tool and she's like you can't use your tool so so they have this conversation speakerphone and he is so rude to santa i've never heard anyone speak to my wife this way i was so angry and she's kind of leaning this way and i'm reaching for the phone i just want to take the phone and say and she's like no no no and he's he's he's saying i'm going to sue you you can't kick me out the law doesn't allow you to kick out a renter i'm like renter that assumes rent i mean there's now this guy's paid nothing he's taken advantage of an 80 year old woman we're trying to close her house and we put money in the bank because there's a monthly gap between our pension social security to stay in this assisted living place and he is so rude to sander okay this is how bad it gets there's so we get a contract on the house it's full price offer plus no contingencies it's perfect it's more money than than we thought we could get for for uh for alice's house and she so desperately needs this money and so roger you think i'm making this up roger finds out who the purchase the purchaser's agent is and goes to the office of the purchasing agent the person representing the family buying the house goes in and says i need you to know this is going to be a fraudulent closing yes the woman who claims to have power of attorney over this old person has manipulated the old person to get power of attorney and she has no legal right to do this and i'm not moving out and you need to be careful and it's going to ruin this closing that sandra has worked so hard to get us to the finish line we're almost there so of course the the purchasing agent calls the the seller's agent you know alice's agent and all of a sudden we're about to lose this whole deal now what how do you how do you think we responded to all this i mean what's our response well you can imagine because you can imagine you're as much you know what we did and this is kind of embarrassing and i'm not even going to give you the details it's so embarrassing we sat around day after day night after night coming up with the most devious manipulative ways you can imagine to get roger out of the house i'm telling you there were times we just listened to each other and think who are we who have we become we had a pesticide option i won't even go into no no lie um then i said you know what i know some kind of other crazy people we should just invite some other people to live in the house live in alice's house with roger until he finally gets fed up and moves um there was to turn off the electricity and the water option which we could have done because you know alice is paying bills for i mean there are others i won't even go into but we realize what what was happening we're we're starting to become like roger we're becoming like him we don't even like him it was all we talked about to the point honestly it was as if roger had moved in with us because it so focused our attention every single day how do we get roger out of the house before this closing we couldn't even believe somebody would give us a contract and give the ballots a contract on the house because they'd never seen the house empty because there's a guy camping out in one of the bedrooms now in part two i'm going to come back and tell you how that story resolved so yeah i know okay okay sorry to do that but but the point point is simply this and you know this it is so difficult it is so difficult to be good to people who just aren't good right it's no matter what kind of faith you have in the moment it is so difficult to be kind to people who just it seems like in their heart they're just unkind or sensitive to people who are insensitive the golden rule it just doesn't seem to apply you know the golden rule do unto others as you would have others what is it do yeah do unto you and this is great until somebody mistreats you and it's great until somebody mistreats me or mistreats somebody that i love and for me in this particular story it's a it's a you know a double-edged sword because i loved alice and i wanted to help alice but i was watching my wife be mistreated at the same time and i'm supposed to do under roger as i would have roger do unto me and suddenly the golden rule is out the window now it's the iron rule i just just made this up but you understand the iron rule it's doing to others as they have done unto you right and this doesn't only feel natural it doesn't only just feel natural to treat people the way they've treated us in the moment it just seems right it just seems fair and in fact if i were to go into detail about some of these crazy ideas we had to get roger out of the house after hearing just the part of the story i've told you you would be like well yeah i mean why why wouldn't you do all that it just seems right it seems fair it seems just it seems scenes seems even and then there's this and maybe this is a little close to home because maybe this is maybe part of your story or maybe part of your story growing up or maybe it's part of the story of your first marriage when when we're mistreated in a relationship and we feel powerless to do anything about it again we're off balance we compensate but sometimes we compensate not in the relationship with the person that threw us off balanced you've seen this happen we compensate in another relationship we compensate somewhere with somebody else i'll i'll take it out on you because i can't take it out on him i can't take it out on her i can't get back at them i can't go back into the office and take it out on the people that mistreated me at work but i've got all this energy i'm off balance and then it's due unto others it's doing to others and someone else has done unto you so round and round and round it goes and you know what we've all been there at some level maybe not a big level but at some level we've all you know been a part of this dynamic so here's the question here's what we're talking about what do we do i mean what do you do about the mean people maybe it was your ex maybe it's a neighbor maybe it's a boss a sister a sister-in-law and you you're just there's just no way to extricate yourself from the relationship because the nature of the relationship but they're just mean and it's fun i'll admit it it's fun to daydream about getting even but the problem of course is and you know this is that getting even makes us even make getting even makes us even with someone that we don't even like it makes us like someone that we dislike so what do we do you can't ignore them right that's impossible and if you ignore them you know what they do right they just keep chipping away chipping away chipping away and eventually we break and we react and it's like we've given them even more power over us so ignoring them isn't the way forward and getting even isn't the way forward unfortunately there's a third option it's the third option that um it's not intuitive um it's a third option that actually decreases their power over us and honestly it's the third option that allows us to guard and protect our hearts and it positions us when this is said and done to tell a much better story of course the way forward is taught and modeled by jesus but it's also modeled in the old testament by a relatively unknown individual whose life intersects with the life of david now many of us if you grow up around church or in church are familiar with who king david was but this event doesn't take place when he's king david or even shepherd boy david this event takes place when he is fugitive david um after david as a young as a teenager killed goliath you remember that story um he becomes a hero a national hero in israel ancient israel and so king saul the king at the time draws him in close because david's a leader he's a national hero you want to keep your friends close you want to keep your potential rivals even closer and then king saul gets word that some rogue prophet has gone to david's home as a little boy and anointed david to be the next king of israel now this is a real problem if if you're already the king because not only do you want to finish out your years as king you want your son in his case jonathan to become the next king so this is now now this is messing with this dynasty so king saul tries to kill david david escapes he becomes a fugitive he's living out in the wilderness he's had to leave his family over time because he's a leader he attracts other men like him other angry mistreated outlaws before long he has his own little miniature army of about 600 men plus their wives and all their stuff and they're just they're outcasts from society they have no place to call home and they're all angry because each of them have their own story of being mistreated and the injustice that it happened under king saul so and david's got all this anger and all this frustration and of course like any of us he's looking for a place to sort of take it out somebody to take it out on because king saul is untouchable and in this story he finally finds a victim and that's where the story picks up so i'll read part of the story and then we're going to stop in the middle pick it up next time here's what happens a certain man this is the first samuel 25 and samuel is essentially the david's biographer in a sense a certain man in moan who had property there in carmel was very wealthy he had a thousand goats you know and you read this in ancient times just like for us it's like what would you do with the thousand goats anyway so yeah a thousand goes he had the car you know garage is full of cars think of it that way he had 3 000 sheep which he was sharing in carmel and his name his name was nabal now sheep shearing season in ancient times this is when wealthy people found out how much wealthier they had just become this was like it's like a financial report an annual financial report he's about to find out how much wealthier he just became based on how much how many sheep were actually alive to be sheared and the product they had as a result that they could then sell so he's again he's about he this is a good day this is a great day for him he's about again the rich just get richer um he's about to find out how much profit he turned so the story continues his name was nabal and his wife's name was abigail she was an intelligent and beautiful woman and her but her husband was harsh and mean in his dealings in fact his his name his name actually means heavy and this hebrew word here actually means heavy he was basically a pain to deal with he was a burden to deal with he was in fact the text tells us he was just a mean person uh text continues while while david and his men were in the wilderness he heard that nabal was shearing sheep so he's like hey this rich guy is about to get richer so he sent 10 of his young men and he said to them i want you to give nebal a message go up to nabal at carmel and greet him in my name so when you show up let everybody know you're coming in the na in david's name and say to him greet him this way say long life to uniball good health to you and your household and good health to all that is yours this was a formal ancient greeting that basically said i come in peace and then make sure you give him the message and here's the message when your shepherds when your shepherds were with us we did not mistreat them the whole time they were at carmel nothing of theirs went missing in other words while your shepherds were out watching over their flocks by night night after night after night during that season our men were all around them all the time and we never stole anything so there's a sense in which your profit your profit is due in part to our protection not only do we not allow our men to steal anything from you we didn't allow the other rogues in the area to steal anything from you as well and he said and if you don't take my word for it the message continues this way ask your own servant and they'll tell you therefore be favorable toward my men since we come at a festive time and please if you would please give your servants and your son david whatever you can find for them in other words you're going to have extra we kind of helped you create that extra if you wouldn't mind sharing with us that would be that would be great so when david's men arrived they went to carmel when they arrived they gave nabal this message in david's name and then they waited and they waited and they waited because nabal was making them wait now while they're waiting on the ball i just want to say a word about david and this is going to be difficult for some of us again based on our view of david growing up in sunday school or church but when you read his biography david was a very violent man he was not someone to be trifled with when he lived in the land of the philistines he regularly raided philistine villages and would murder every single person in the village so there would be no one left to tell the tale in fact his biographer describes it this way that whenever david attacked an area he did not leave a man or a woman alive but took sheep and cattle donkeys and camels and all the clothing so he was a dangerous and violent man even by ancient standards so nabal should have known better because certainly he knew the reputation of david the warrior so anyway he keeps them waiting but eventually nabal sends his answer or perhaps he comes out and gives the answer himself it's not clear the ball answered here's what he said the ball answered david's servants who is this david you come in david's name who is david who is this son of jesse so he knew who david was but he's like you know what yeah we've heard of david and you think he's such a big deal he's not such a big deal who is this guy hey come on he's just one of many many servants are breaking away from their masters these days your master is a nobody your master is an outlaw i didn't ask for his help i didn't need his help i don't owe him anything so no i'm not going to share with david and his band of merry men you are dismissed why he says why why should i take my bread and water and the meat i have slaughtered from my shearers and give it to men coming from you know where did you come from again so no you're dismissed so david's men turned around and they went back and when they arrived they repeated every word and then david said to his men oh well it was worth a try no david actually said to his men each of you strap on your sword so they did and then an interesting detail in the text and david strapped his on as well in other words you mess with me and you will see you mess with me and you will pay now there's a reason i think why the author highlights david arming himself with his sword because david's sword was like no other sword david's sword was actually a reminder that he did not need to return evil for evil david's sword was actually a reminder that he did not need to take matters into his own hands in fact i'm just curious do you know where david got his sword anybody goliath that's right he got a sword from goliath so goliath sword is a visual aid of god's promise of protection and provision to david god had chosen him god had raised him up as a teenager god had anointed him as king he did not need to take matters into his own hands of anybody on the planet at that time david was the one person who could turn to god for help and god would in fact intervene on his behalf but david is hurt david's angry and he can't see any of that to him it's just an oversized sword the story that goes with the story he's forgotten the story he's forgotten god's provision because he's so angry and he's so hurt and he redirects his frustration with king saul who's untouchable toward nabal so about 400 men this is amazing about 400 men went up with david 400 men okay this was an overreaction of epic proportion this was going to be a massacre you've heard we've all heard that hurt people hurt people this is a case of hunted people hunt people so he sets out and it's so interesting because the biographer once again lets us get inside david's head he begins internally to build up a head of steam to build his case he's he's going to build a case to justify what he's not 100 sure he should be doing you ever ever do that you're kind of driving home and you're kind of building up a head of steam you're practicing your script or you're driving to work or you're thinking about that afternoon when you see him or you see her we have those imaginary conversations at least i do um in my imaginary conversations i think i've told you this before um when i have an imaginary conversation with people um there's there are spectators you know listening to me give this person a piece of my mind you know and then i have like this incredible one-liner and the person who's my enemy they're like oh you're right your logic is unassailable and they just kind of melt off into the distance and everybody's like andy and it's not quite like that but anyway you know you have you have those conversations in your head where you you're just gonna say just the right thing and then you're gonna win you know hey you know andy i got an idea i think this was sanders idea hey let's go into the house when roger's not there and slice his air mattress fold it up put it on the street with his clothes in his computer and change the locks i might have been my idea anyway you just you just visualize you know what can we do to get back at this person that has done so much to us in fact here's what the biographer says that david had just said to his guys it's been useless all my watching over this fella's property kind of building up his case in the wilderness so that nothing of his was missing all this i've done for him think of all the things i've done for him think of all the nights we stayed up think of all the things we could have stolen think of how wealthy we could already be but what has he done he has paid he has paid me back evil for good then he he you know he invites god into the equation may god deal with me be it ever so severely if by morning i leave one male of all who belong to him alive in other words i'm going to murder him i'm going to kill his male servants and i'm gonna kill his sons that'll teach him to treat me this way so we're gonna pause the story there here's what we have so far two characters uh we have two responses and we have no hero right i mean we have nabal we have david evil for good david did good he responded with evil david who's about to do evil for evil nabal is somewhat maniacal and david is about to be predictable but i mean who could blame him for what he's about to do and sometimes again it just seems like evil for evil is the only option turns out as i said earlier it's not there's a third option we're going to talk about that in part two but here's what i want you to do between now and part two i want to give you four questions to think about and again i would prefer you not to think about these through the filter of other people but just through what's going on right now in your life with the people that are difficult to deal with you may not consider them mean people it may not be an extreme or it may be very extreme but i want you to process these questions through the filter of what's going on right now in your life and parents i can't overstate the importance of this parents i think you need to teach these four questions to your children because your children are have or will face some very mean people and their natural reaction like our natural reaction will be evil for evil or to allow that person to continue to control them and as a parent this is so difficult to watch and sometimes as a parent it's tempting to coach our kids to power up to return evil for evil because we will feel better right see these are four questions for us these are four four questions for our kids question number one is this do you want to be even with someone you don't even like no i already know the answer to this question no we don't but our natural response to mean people oftentimes is an attempt to get even with people we don't even like to be like someone that we would readily admit that we that we dislike and again we think somehow once we get even that ends it but that doesn't end it right that doesn't end the cycle it actually perpetuates it um recently i heard jaime dickens say it's not evil for evil it just becomes evil for evil for evil for evil for evil for evil for evil it just goes on and on and on so do you want to be part or do i want to be part of perpetuating that cycle the question number two wouldn't you rather be ahead i mean do you want to get even with someone you don't even like or wouldn't you rather be ahead wouldn't you prefer to be un unlike the person or the people that you dislike and this is as i said earlier this is so not intuitive but here's the thing and when i say it you know it's true unlike any other arena of life you actually relationally pull ahead by refusing to get even you actually pull ahead by refusing to get even and that leads to a third question that we ask a lot around here within several different contexts it's simply this in fact this is third question don't miss next time because this third question is a question that the character that we will introduce next time actually baits david into asking about his own future and the third question is this when this is nothing more than a story you tell what story do you want to tell when your response to this current relationship is nothing more than a story you tell what story do you want to tell do you want to tell the story that i ended up just like the person that i disliked because i allowed them to infuriate me into acting just like them it's not a good story it's not the story that any of us want to tell and then the fourth question the fourth question is the on-ramp to the solution the fourth question is the on-ramp to pulling ahead and the fourth question sets us up and puts us in this uncomfortable space that we know we probably should step into and if you're a jesus follower if you're a christian you know with certainty you've been called to step into but it's so uncomfortable the fourth question is this what would it look like and you don't have to commit to this you just have to have an internal conversation what would it look like to return good for evil not just refuse to react or to react in like kind but to be kind not just refuse to be bad but to take seriously the words of jesus because he was so direct about this i mean this you know a lot of things jesus said we have a hard time figuring out this this is too clear he said i want you to do good to those who mistreat you don't just put up with them don't just forgive them don't just ignore them don't just try not to be like them jesus says no that's that's not enough i want you to think through how to do good to those who mistreat you because jesus knew that doing good to people who have not been good to us is ultimately what frees us but protects our heart getting even is natural it's predictable jesus has invited us to be unpredictable jesus has invited us to do something extraordinary it's as if he's saying don't be predictable don't write a predictable story write a remarkable story write that story that's worth telling and what will determine whether or not that story is worth telling is not what the other person does because you have no control over that it is 100 right here in our decision whether or not to respond either in like kind or to be kind to do good for those who have mistreated us remarkable begins with an honest answer to this question what would it look like what would it look like to return good people what would it look like to do good to the person who has mistreated you because you don't pull ahead by attempting to get even and we will pick it up right there next time in part two of mean people i'd love to pray for us before we go heavenly father it is so easy to stand up here and talk about it it is so difficult to walk out the doors or show up at work or to go next door or in some cases even go home and do this so would you please give each of us eyes to see our circumstances the way that you see our circumstances and would you give us ears father to hear your whisper when we ask that question honestly that many of us are afraid to ask what would it look like to do good for the person who has not done good to me give us eyes to see give us ears to hear and then give us the courage to step into that scary scary place and in doing so we know because you promised us this in doing so we become like our father in heaven so give us the courage to take that step in jesus name amen i've got a friend closer than a brother there is no judgment oh how he loves me i've got a friend and he is my strength he is my portion with me in the valley with me in the fire with me in the storm let all my life [Music] testify [Music] us hallelujah oh praise my soul god really loves us and god really loves us his mercy's enough [Music] forgiveness or healing his mercy is enough oh and this is [Applause] [Music] no more christ is the lord this is ours [Applause] [Music] hallelujah really loves us [Music] [Applause] is [Music] cause god really loves us [Music] hallelujah [Music] is hey god really loves each and every one of you guys thank you so much for being here with us today god bless you and have a great week [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: North Point Community Church

Views: 7,602

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Keywords: North Point Community Church, North Point, NorthPoint, North Point Atlanta, Andy Stanley, AndyStanley, Andy Stanley church, Andy Stanley message, Andy Stanley sermons, North Point church, NPCC, North Point youtube, Andy Stanley YouTube

Id: o8CgqDkpw-c

Length: 56min 28sec (3388 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 13 2021