Coffee Date Week 2
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How to have a healthy relationship
How to have a healthy relationship
PROLOGUE
What constitutes a healthy relationship?
For years, this question would frustrate me. This has been asked when I was in JH, HS, College, in Community Groups, at work… People tend to have this obsession with created “healthy relationships.”
What is frustrating, though, is not the question itself. It is what we are taught in response. We obsess with healthy behavior then spend hours explaining what unhealthy behavior looks like and what healthy behavior looks like - which is great, but what then do we do to get from unhealthy behavior, to healthy behavior?
For our first week of coffee date, this is what I want to spend time looking at. What does it look like to have healthy relationships that can thrive even in unhealthy circumstances.
Let’s pray.
INTRODUCTION
What would you describe as a healthy relationship and what would you describe as an unhealthy relationship? I want you to think about these questions because you will be talking about them in small group tonight. As you consider them, it is important to know that one thing is true and cannot be changed, we were created to live in community.
When man was created, God living in community with the Son and Holy Spirit created Adam and saw that he was lonely so God gave Adam Eve. From there we see nations of people living in community. Even as a church, as a youth group, we are told that we play a role in something greater.
4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
We play a small role in church as a part of a greater whole.
If we were created to be in community, why then is community so hard? What about it makes it feel impossible for us to live in properly?
There are a number of factors that go into it. We can talk about race, gender, upbringing, school… all of it factors in to how we do community and how we view relationships, but today I want to take a down a road of 4 attitudes that are present regardless of the factors in our lives.
The first one of those is
SELFISHNESS MAKES RELATIONSHIPS UNHEALHTY
If I were to ask you to look at relationships that you have had that are no longer as strong as they once were and identify what was the cause of that, we would probably break it down to some sort of selfishness.
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
The things that make us happy and the ways se want to do things and the way we want our “ideal” relationships to look are all part of a selfish mindset that is hard to break.
One of the earliest words kids learn is no. My daughter is currently in a stage where she is testing the boundaries of what we ask her to do and sometimes it ends in tears.
As humans, it is so easy to default back into what it is that we want.
And this is what we are taught even. It goes against our human nature, our cultural acceptance to not act in a way that thinks of what someone else needs before we think of what we need.
1 An unfriendly person pursues selfish ends
and against all sound judgment starts quarrels.
Being selfish puts in a posture of being judgmental which leads to arguments and disagreements that are not handled graciously.
If selfishness makes relationships unhealthy, SELFLESSNESS cures them.
Can you imagine if the relationships we had started with us asking, “what do you need?” instead of “how does this benefit me?”
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Yes, we were created to be beings that are in community with one another, but we were also created to be beings that put others first.
Point #1 is BE SELFLESS, NOT SELFISH
The second thing that makes relationships unhealthy is PRIDE.
10 Where there is strife, there is pride,
but wisdom is found in those who take advice.
Pride is one of those catch all things that can be used an excuse for just about anything we do. We take pride in our work, in the person that we are. We are told to be proud of our accomplishments and to be proud of the environment we create around school, sports. You name it, pride is often seen as something that is most present in our day to day lives.
In a relationship, Pride shows up in a number of different ways…
When we are critical of other people without taking an account of what role we play.
When we judge people for how they behave or dress, especially those closest to us.
When we look down on people because we feel we are better than them emotionally, physically, spiritually…
When we hold people to the expectations we set for ourselves without taking into account the expectations they feel from areas in their life you don’t even get to see
Unhealthy relationships experience a constant stream of prideful criticisms.
Think about the times when you feel like you and your friends are always fighting. Maybe your friend group always has drama. Or the person you are dating can seem to do anything right… When we are prideful we constantly place blame.
The scariest part about pride is that it is so self deceiving. While others see the pride in us, we have trouble seeing it.
18 Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
Basically, your pride leads to your own self-destruction.
The healthy opposite of this is HUMILITY.
8 Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.
A posture of humility is one that begins any relational issue with, “how am I contributing to the unhealthy nature of what is going on here?”
Think about those relationships again, how many of you start arguments by asking, “how am I wrong here?”
Jesus practiced this.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Imagine if Jesus having the full power of God saying, I will come and die for all the prideful people who are sinners. Thats the full nature of humility.
Yet, for us it is hard to say, maybe I was wrong here too.
Point #2 is that Humility is more honorable than pride.
The third thing and probably the most uncomfortable one of the four is Insecurity
What are the things that I am insecure about that can ruin my ability to have a healthy relationship?
Better yet, what are the things I am insecure about that I am not willing to be vulnerable about with anyone?
This one can be the most uncomfortable because it forces us to take a second to examine the things about ourselves that we like the least.
Insecurities are one of those things that since we are afraid of what someone else might think about us, we never address and struggle to show someone the fullness of the baggage we carry with us.
We fear that what will follow is rejection and judgment instead of trusting someone to LOVE us regardless of the things that we have done.
But love is the answer there isn’t it?
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
When we are a part of a relationship that is healthy we can air out our insecurities and be met with love.
And Godly love is one that is patient and kind and does not envy or boast. Godly love is one that in the same way Jesus came to die for us so we wouldn’t have to bear the consequences of our sins, we take the same posture of selflessness and humility to show someone that no insecurity is so great that we are not willing to work through it together and uplift them instead of judging.
Point #3 is that LOVE SECURES INSECURITIES.
It doesn’t mean that they just go away. It means that even though they are there, you are able to find safety in a relationship that meets you with love.
The last unhealthy pattern is RESENTMENT
This is the biggest one. Resentment is nasty.
You can have an incredible relationship that on the surface looks like the type of relationship you want to use as the bench mark for the rest of your relationships and have resentment about the smallest thing that can build and build until it creates a wall that cannot be broken down anymore.
Resentment is nasty because it doesn’t just hurt the relationship, it messes with you personally.
21 When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
22 I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
Bitterness and Resentment turn you into someone who cannot even opperate as your normal self.
With resentment is starts with the small things.
Maybe someone said something that offended you and you never said anything but it always stuck with you.
Maybe its something someone did that you haven’t been able to resolve yet.
Maybe its an ex tat didn’t treat you well and you are angry and frustrated without realizing you are the only person it is affecting.
Or maybe its your parents. Maybe you are bitter because of how they treat you, or each other. Or you are upset because they are divorced and your relationship with one of them (or both of them) is strained.
Whatever it is, how do you combat resentment from building?
With forgiveness.
Forgiveness for yourself, for the people who hurt you.
Forgiveness for the things said and asking for forgiveness for the places that might be your fault.
13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Jesus looked at us as beings that are rebellious and said I forgive you enough to die for you. We should do the same for others.
Unhealthy relationships are…
Selfish in that they ask what benefits us
Prideful by always placing blame and never seeing where we went wrong
Insecure by convincing ourselves that people don’t hear about my mess.
Resentful for the things people have done because it’s too hard to work through things.
Healthy relationships are…
Selfless by asking first “what do other need from me?”
Humble by taking a look asking “what can I change about the things that I have done?”
Loving by leaning in and uplifting others in their insecurities and creating a safe space for them.
Forgiving by being willing to be open and not holding grudges on the the areas that do more damage for us more than anything.
The challenge for us in this coffee date is to ask the question, which one of these lists best reflect me and the relationships I am in?
Let’s prayf