The Problem with Love | Steve Arterburn

i thought that given the fact that it was a weekend where we're focusing on love that i would do something unusual and speak about love but not the all the good stuff but the problems with love and there are problems because you know we all have different styles of how we relate to each other very different kind of people for instance you might be the bowling ball type of person the bowling ball type person just loves to be in control just rolls over whatever just keeps going tries to keep his mind out of the gutter strikes at whatever's in front of him knocks it down and spares no one i mean just wants to get it done and kind of a motto would be control or be controlled not really into emotions but very much into what people should do and how they should do it the bowling ball what what a what a tough hard person they get a lot done and a lot of people might get hurt if they get in their way are you a bowling ball person maybe not maybe you are an egg person maybe you're an you know an egg it's like one of these people it's not a controlling kind of person but it's kind of a pleaser and they want to make somebody happy they want to do anything they can to create a life for somebody else and they're just full of potential they're reliable dependable if you ever need them they want to please they want to do it sometimes they see a bowling ball type person and they think man i have all this goodness inside of me i could just cover this person with my love and they would change and be radically different you know sometimes bowling balls aren't black or green sometimes they're pink come in many colors eggs white brown summer have different colors some they they can get well they get hurt some get hard-boiled and they they they lose their caring but a lot of times the egg believes if i could just cover the oh dear well anyway they it just doesn't work and it breaks their heart and their soul and and i'm not yoking it hurts them to get involved with a bowling ball person well those aren't the only kinds and you know there are many different kinds there i'm just talking about four you know there's a balloon kind of person and this person is more of a victim because they're you know their heads kind of in the clouds they they're all about emotion whatever feels good they want to do that and just anybody that wants to do anything they are on board they have no discernment whatsoever whichever way the wind's blowing that's that's where they go and um they're just setting themselves up with no protection whatsoever their hearts out there you can see that and and they're so susceptible to being victimized over and over again they'll be in an abusive relationship they'll just walk right out and open themselves up to another abusive relationship very different than the cactus person that's the avoider the the cactus person well it's very orderly loves numbers predictable things doesn't really need much not very emotional the way they get married is they really step it up in the dating process and and someone thinks well this is going to be great but they can't maintain it because they're a cactus and they're out there alone they're focused on themselves and what they need to do to live and survive and they don't want anybody to get close but sometimes they see someone like the balloon person and they start singing fly me to the moon they think maybe this could take me away and the cactus looks so appealing to the balloon that sometimes the balloon person will just decide to attach themselves to the cactus and hope that life will be new this time because it's so fun in the beginning but what happens is it kind of takes the life out of the balloon and eventually you just got this old um thing hanging there half a life and nobody's happy everybody's miserable i would like to say something tonight that would prevent that from happening or maybe something that if it's happened we could get our lives back that's what i'm going to try to do it won't be easy but if you'll if you'll bear with me i think that we can do it maybe you see yourself in this maybe your relationship has been so full of defensiveness and conflict the only person that's ever heard two sides of an argument in your home is the lady in the apartment next door there's there's so much conflict there and trying to win and everybody loses and i know that some of you are convinced in your relationship you do not have a problem you are absolutely doing everything in the right way i know that you believe that and i'm just going to ask you well maybe for 30 minutes you could just let me have a word with you that might be really significant and important you know we have to ask ourselves what kind of relationship are we in is it a godly relationship or is it more like an animal you know animals attack each other they even kill each other they're mean some animals they don't attack they run from other animals just to survive and some animals hide and camouflage themselves and a lot of relationships never get beyond the animal level it's not pretty and we can do better than animals we could be human but the ungodly human you know what the ungodly human does judges everybody else and judges that person they're in a relationship with that's the ungodly human relationship we have these conflicts we have these differences and i sit back and i judge you then there's a there's a godly relationship and that's what that's what we want to find in a godly relationship you do what god does the bible says god is rich in mercy you accept the other person you love the other person you give them mercy you free them up you forgive them and you become part of a redeeming force in their lives and when that happens we can see some amazing miracles occur even in the worst of situations but it's not easy and sometimes you know you're not with a very easy person there was a little man who uh had to bury his wife and there was a graveside ceremony for her and right when they lowered her into the ground there was a huge clap of thunder and a an amazing bolt of lightning that filled the sky and followed by another clap of thunder and he looked at the reverend and he said well she's there i mean you could be with a difficult person and i think there's still hope for a difficult relationship so let's talk about five problems i've got five problems i want to talk about here's the first one the problem could be there's no problem until you create the problem you have to create problems because you came maybe you were in a chaotic home and peace makes you very uncomfortable and so you really want there to be some conflict and some arguing and some energy here and so there's no problem but you have to think about it and and so you're kind of like what it says in james 4 1 through 3. here it is what's causing the quarrels and fights among you don't they come from the evil desires at war within you you want what you don't have so you scheme and kill to get it you're jealous of what others have but you can't get it so you fight and wage war to take it away from them yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask god for it and even when you ask you don't get it because your motives are all wrong you want only what will give you pleasure if we're doing things based on our feelings and what feels good we are really going to be creating problems all through our relationships and it's not the other person out there it's the stirred up stuff inside of us and so when we stop obsessing over ourselves and we stop looking for whatever makes us feel better then we can experience that relationship and find comfort in the other person when we get anxious when there's peace and quiet at home and and you know if you're creating a problem you're doing something that that jesus talked about look at this verse in matthew 23. he's talking about the religious leaders which he talked about a lot and wasn't happy with them they crushed people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden are you demanding things of other people are you causing and stirring up because of what you want and think that is needed then you might be you could be crushing people that god wants you to love maybe in parenting you are a bowling ball kind of parent and you want to control the uncontrollable your parents didn't care how you felt so you don't care how anybody else feels you just want them to do what needs to be done and you roll over them and miss their heart their soul the essence of who they are all of us could take a look and see if maybe we're a bowling ball parent or maybe we're a cactus parent and not involved emotionally with our kids the problem could be the problem that you create and when you stop creating it maybe there's no problem the second problem i want to talk about is this the problem could be that you don't see a problem you know you could um you could be blind to the reality there was a man was so proud he gave this sales presentation to this company and he came home and thought it went so well and he said to his wife you know the man told me that i would be excellent at selling used cars isn't that great honey well i don't know that that was exactly a positive message that he was given the guy sometimes we just don't see it because we don't want to see it or we don't care to see it and and sometimes we don't see problems because we just expect everything is going to work out beautifully if we're not careful we'll get so so um walled off from the world in reality we'll stop hearing stop sing our heart will be so hard it won't perceive jesus talked about it like this matthew 13. his disciples came and asked him why do you use parables when you talk to talk to the people and he replied well you are permitted to understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven but others are not to those who listen to my teaching more understanding will be given and they'll have an abundance of knowledge but for those who are not listening even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them that's why i use these parables for they look and they don't really see they hear but they don't really listen or understand this fulfills the prophecy of isaiah that says when you hear what i say you will not understand when you see what i do you will not comprehend for the hearts of those people are hardened and their ears cannot hear and they close their eyes so their eyes cannot see and their ears cannot hear and their hearts cannot understand and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them wouldn't it be horrible if we just kept shutting things down and our heart became so hardened our ears became so deaf our eyes became so blind and we no longer could see the reality of our situation or the relationship that we're in we've got to see what's going on we can't be blind and we've got to guard our look at proverbs 4 23 guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life if things are causing your heart to be hardened we have to get rid of those things we have to do something we can't just wait for it to go away we have to take action so that the heart is not hardened we need to look at our situation maybe we're so into ourselves and our philosophy of life and what we think and we think these thoughts that we've been thinking and we think about it because that's what we think about and we think other people should think like we think but maybe if we got out of our philosophy we could get into curiosity about what other people are feeling and experiencing not what i am thinking what an unselfish thing that would be to sacrifice my point of view to hear what you have to say and understand your point of view and sometimes in this day and age we do everything but make time for each other we're so busy on social media we put ourselves out there nothing's sacred everybody sees everything that looks good and all of that and we got it for the world but we don't have it for each other we must carve out the time take the time to be with each other now there's a there's a third problem the problem could be that you see a problem and you choose nothing choose to do nothing about it there's an amazing story in scripture about eli the priest he was the priest who raised samuel and well he's one of two poor passive fathers that i'll mention but let's look at first samuel 2 22. now eli was very old but he was aware that his sons were doing to the people of what they were doing to the people he knew for instance that his sons were seducing the young women who assisted at the entrance of the tabernacle his sons were priests at the tabernacle and he knew what was going on eli said to them i've been hearing reports from all the people about the wicked things that you're doing why do you keep sinning you must stop my son the reports i hear among the lord's people are not good if someone sins against another person god can mediate for the guilty part but if someone sins against the lord who can intercede but eli's sons wouldn't listen to their father for the lord was already planning to put them to death so eli did what a lot of us like to do he talked he said stuff but he was in charge of the tabernacle and he should have he should have removed them from the priesthood but he didn't do it and so along come the philistines they battle the israelites they steal the ark of the covenant they kill 30 000 soldiers including hofne and phineus the sons of eli that the lord took out and when eli an old overweight man heard the news he fell back in his chair broke his neck and died instantly now i'm telling you that is the result of passive fathering doing nothing but probably a worse example is david and and let me just i don't think it's on the screen but let me read this scripture to you the scripture in ii samuel 13 says this was after amnon raped his sister tamar and then absalom kills amna his brother and the scripture says and when king david heard these things he was exceedingly grieved but he would not afflict the spirit of his son amnon for he loved him because he was his first his firstborn so amnon raped david this is a horrible idea about love and david doesn't even go to him to talk to him about it it's even worse than eli and you see the results of of two sons trying to take over the throne humiliating david all because david is a horrible he's not all bad but when it comes to fathering he didn't really understand that love requires action love requires more than just letting someone do what they want to do now i don't know of a lot of problems i can't think of any where passivity is the answer we might believe that there should be a time of of restraint or strategic silence uh maybe we want to listen maybe we give up our philosophy we get curious about the person we search but if it all leads to passivity it's not going to be good so we have to ask what are we requiring of our children you know if we're doing everything for them and they have no challenges then we're not really doing everything for them so a lot of times you know you you hear of people in marriages that just want to maintain the status quo keep the peace and i've said it before god doesn't honor peace keepers he honors peacemakers and sometimes you have to disturb the peace and if you can't if you don't have the courage or the resources you have to reach out and get other people around you to help you proverbs 10 10 says that when you wink at wrong you cause trouble but an open rebuke brings lasting peace and so we have to talk about reality we have to deal with reality and you know pleasing um just being there the victim being this unemotional thing it eventually doesn't work the bowling ball eventually slows down all of these methods they all end up being unsatisfactory and hopefully we discover that before it's too late now you know if um if there's something that can be done if there's an option maybe you don't see it you have to ask for help to even find the option you can do something so often people have just given up when maybe they were just on the verge of something happening everett hale wrote this short verse he says i'm only one but i am one i cannot do everything but i can do something and what i can do i should do and with the help of god i will do it what a great thing to go from passivity to action the fourth kind of problem is this the problem could be that you see a problem but it's not really the problem that you need to be dealing with and and we find people arranging the pictures in the living room while the house is burning down that would be very inappropriate matthew let's read this matthew 23 25 26 what sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you pharisees hypocrites you're so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish but inside you're filthy full of greed and selfish indulgence you blind pharisee first wash the inside of the cup and the dish and then the outside will become clean too well you know sometimes in relationships we're not only cleaning the outside and leaving what's inside there but we're trying nagging complaining that the other person isn't doing it rather than us do the work the inner work that we could do on our heart and soul and mind we are always trying to solve the problem of the other person and and it's just it's not the problem if that problem is the big problem and it's not getting better then maybe the bigger problem is the strategy that you're using to deal with it maybe it's made it worse maybe you hoped that it would be better but but it doesn't and so if you're one of these people that's trying uh to change another person you have to go inward and and and work on you don't complain about the other work on this all of us have work that we can do and yet i know that there are people that are convinced no i don't i am the good guy in this relationship i believe compared to the bad guy you're the good guy but even the good guy has work that needs to be done in dealing with the problem we had a a woman on our radio program and her husband in a fit of rage committed a crime and went to prison and he was a sex addict he was full of rage and she called us because she wanted to know if she should have him come from prison to home well as most of us know we have some some great things going on in prison and people are transforming their lives but not everyone is and so our advice to her was no you should see if there's change he hasn't been involved in anything in prison you should have him go to a transition house and and then if you see the change invite him in sure enough she didn't do that a lot of people asked for our advice and could care less what we say ushered him right in was just a couple of days she hears the phone being up comes the pornography on the phone he's right back where he was angry bitter resentful had to get a restraining order it didn't work sometimes sometimes we really do need to be careful we need to deal with our problem of not dealing realistically with the other problem and so whether we're the problem or not we must assess is my problem the way i deal with the problem that's the big thing that i can deal with finally the fifth problem with love is this problem that well your solution could be the problem that's where this whole message started i started thinking about this message when my wife pointed out to me that my solution was the problem and so i began to think about those solutions that i have to problems whether it's avoiding or not stepping in at the right time different things and i i had to agree with her that just as chocolate is not a solution for her these things were not a solution for me she we used to joke each other she would pick chocolate i would pick pizza and we would just deal with symptoms all day long and never the real source sometimes the solution becomes the problem look at what abraham's solution was abraham moved south to the negev and lived for a while between kurdish and shur then he moved to gerrard while living there as a foreigner abraham introduced his wife sarah by saying she's my sister so king abimelech of gerrard sent for sarah and had her brought to him at his palace but that night god came to abimelech in a dream and told him you are a dead man for that woman that you have taken is already married but abimelech had not slept with her yet so he said lord will you destroy an innocent nation didn't abraham tell me she's my sister and she herself said yes he is my brother i acted in complete innocence my hands are clean so here's the father of the jewish faith so afraid that he's willing to lie and boy did that ever strategy ever passed down through all the generations because that is the strategy of choice for so many people it's just to just distort the truth and it only only causes problems because we're so again we're so focused on the things out there that we're afraid of or we want to change versus the things inside of us look at this so put to death the sinful earthly things working lurking within you have nothing to do with sexual immorality impurity lust and evil desires don't be greedy for a greedy person is an idolater worshiping the things of this world this gives us plenty of work to do on ourselves the solution is to work on ourselves it will always be to work on ourselves our solution will not be to ignore or power up our power down or control criticize the solution is not going to be to attack or blame or label the solution is not going to be to comply i talked to a lady the other day she married this guy she was a believer he wasn't and the second they were married she said you may he's he said you will not go to church our kids will not go to church you will not talk about jesus in this home and she complied with everything and enough was never enough demand after demand the church thing was just the beginning sometimes the other person is not going to get help and compliance doesn't help it so we have to go get help ourselves and work and get support and maybe there's a different way of approaching it than compliance there are other people that are not so demanding they're really some great people in in relationships but sometimes the weaker person has these unrealistic demands on that great person and they just can't fulfill them and so we really have to accept people not the abusive people but we have to accept people as they are we have to be realistic in our demands and our expectations and when we do that we give that freedom i talked about freedom to change and transform which is possible for everyone we have to ask ourselves are my expectation just a little too unrealistic should i look at what i'm expecting maybe to get fixed from my childhood that won't or what is it that can't be duplicated from my great childhood it's just none of this is maybe that's where the problem is bernard of clairvaux said this you can reach me still whenever you wish if you're content to find me as i am not as you wish me to be i preached a whole sermon one time on acceptance is the answer to all my problems today and when we start to accept the other person and work on ourselves transformation is possible the worst of the worst can be transformed into godly healthy caring and loving people in really great relationship here's here's a great verse don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the kingdom of god don't fool yourselves those who indulge in sexual sin worship idols commit adultery male prostitutes practice homosexuality thieves greedy people drunkards abusive those that cheat people none will inherit the kingdom of god and then it says this some of you you were just like that he points out but you were cleansed you were made right with god by calling on the name of the lord jesus christ and by this the spirit of our god the holy spirit the supernatural power that can come in and can transform us change is possible it is never too late it is it is begun with a step of humility a step of willingness humble willingness one on top of the other and all of a sudden you start to see change happen maybe you're tired of just being attached to something maybe you've broken yourself into over other things maybe maybe it's time for transformation i i don't know when you could have this little chat but here is my fantasy dream world on the way home or maybe once you get home you say to the person you're in a relationship with was there anything you were hoping that i would hear in that message and then you just listen no points off here's another thing that could happen on the way home or once you're there honey when he talked about that i saw myself and i want to be better than that wouldn't that be amazing sometimes just saying that we have a problem begins the solution sometimes you need to ask for help sometimes you need to work on yourself you might be have some kind of addiction you need to go to a group but if you're willing to do whatever it takes transformation can take place now i also know that some of you you feel like you're in impossible situations and i would just encourage you to continue to pray to god but also surround yourself with supportive people because i just don't want you to give up you never know what may happen if you persevere not alone but with the help of others on the wall of a concentration camp this was written i believe in the son even when it's not shining i believe in love even when i feel it not i believe in god even when god is silent you may feel like that god is silent or has ignored you but god is love he loves you he's there for you and he wants you in a loving relationship but he knows that people are broken and god doesn't just come in and fix everybody but he does hear the prayers of righteous people so we humble ourselves before god and we ask god for the courage the humility and the willingness to change all right let me pray for you lord i just pray that anyone hearing this might ask if there's anything that they need to work on or they would just say it here's what i'm going to work on that this valentine's day could be the beginning of a whole new transformed relationship not pointing the finger but just working on ourselves from the inside out god i know you love every person hearing my voice you are full and rich in mercy help us to feel it to see it and respond to your undying love in the name of your son jesus christ my savior i ask all these things amen amen

Channel: Northview Church

Views: 623

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Northview Church, Northview, Steve Poe, Carmel, Fishers, Westfield, Lafayette, Indy North, Indianapolis

Id: rm2HY7SS040

Length: 36min 53sec (2213 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021